From: Paul S. Dixon (dixonps@juno.com)
Date: Wed Jan 14 1998 - 01:44:09 EST
On Wed, 14 Jan 1998 16:26:03 +1030 Andrew Kulikovsky
<anku@celsiustech.com.au> writes:
>>
>> At 01:37 PM 1/14/98 +1030, you wrote:
>> >Filoi,
>> >
>> >Romans 8:13 says (NIV): "If you live according to the flesh, you will
>> >die."
>> >
>> >Now, the "you will die" is MELLETE APOQNHSKEIN, which is literally
>> > "you are about to die". I think Paul is saying that people who live
an
>> >ungodly lifestyle are on their way to self destruction and will soon
>> >die (physically and spiritually).
>> >
>> >Therefore, I would translate it as "You will surely die very soon".
>> >
>> >comments?
>> >
>>
>> Your rendering is a tad paraphrastic. The text does not, in fact, say
>> "you will surely die very soon" it simply says "you will die". The
>> element of time is left ambiguous by Paul (because he doesn't know
when >> they will die either) and this ambiguity should be retained in
translation.
>>
>> If you wanted to translate it in another fashion, retain the
>> ambiguity, and remain faithful to Paul, you could, I think, translate
it with
>> "you will come to die" though this is not very pleasant English.
>>
> [Andrew]
> Thanks for your comments Jim.
>
> I feel that MELLETE has a sence of imminency to it, which is why
>I used "surely" and "very soon".
> "very soon" is still a relative term - it makes no definite
>statement about the exact time of death, just that it will happen
>relatively soon.
>
> Do you agree?
Paul uses MELLW four other times in Romans (4:24, 5:14, 8:18, and
8:38). In all of the other occurrences "imminency" is not the thought.
In fact, the distant futurity seems far more prevalent that otherwise.
I would have to agree with Jim here.
Paul Dixon
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