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Translating 1 Cor 12:31

    I want to get comments from others about a rather novel translation I
saw of 1 Cor 12:31 recently in an article in Novum Testamentum.  While
I am generally against novelty in translation or exegesis, there may be
times when it is appropriate to treat all previous renderings as
inappropriate.  This is certainly the case with all translations of
1 Cor 11:10 which take exousian echein tes kephales as passive, meaning
a veil or specific hair style, given that there is no other place in
Greek literature that I know of where exousia has a passive sense.  The
NT parallels to 1 Cor 11:10, particularly in Revelaiton, are clearly
active in meaning, but I digress.  In any event, the article I read
asserted that the typical rendering of
zelouta de ta charismata ta meizona kai eti kath' huperbolen hodon
humin deiknumi
as "Seek earnestly the greater or best gifts and yet I show to you
a more excellent way" fails both in how it divides the sentence
and, more importantly, what it links kai eti kath' huperbolen
with.  Virtually all translations link it with hodos.  The article
argued that all instances the author was able to find ot this
contruction showed that this adverbial phrase should be taken
with what precedes, NOT with what follows.  Therefore, so the
article contends, Paul said to the Corinthians "Seek the greater
gifts to the uttermost/with full intensity .  I will show you
the way.  This understanding of the syntax supposedly
makes the verse fit better into the context, apart from the
grammatical necessity of this rendering.

   I find this rather attractive, but I'm always nervous about
adopting renderings that are novel.  It is interesting to note that
Bauer takes this construction as having the sense the article
maintains everywhere it appears except 1 Cor 12:31.  Guess that's
just more evidence that the glosses in Bauer are a bad thing and
it owuld be better to use a lexicon based on semantic domain,
as Bauer often goes beyond the meaning of a word to eisegesis.

Any comments on this understanding of the syntax?


Ken Litwak