From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed Jul 08 1998 - 08:21:40 EDT
>This is a spawn of the EN ARCHE thread.
>The blind man's response was EGW EIMI.
>A literal translation appearing to be "I am", why do versions
>imply by brackets [he] or translate something like:
>WEY "I am the man."
>DBY It is I
>KJ21 "I am he!"
>Something like this confounds the efforts of non-greekers like me
>to understand greek subtleties. Shouldn't it simply read "I AM"
>just like at 8:58?
I don't really mean to be condescending here but will inevitably sound that
way: the list's FAQ says: "Anyone interested in the Greek New Testament is
invited to subscribe, but the list will assume at least a working knowledge
of Biblical Greek." You wouldn't be finding this a problem if you'd had
even one semester's instruction in ancient Greek.
Your problem in this particular text is that Greek, even classical Greek,
but NT Greek no less, regularly omits elements of a clause that may readily
be understood from what has preceded, even where English may demand a
fuller formulation. This is the standard ancient Greek use of what is
called "ellipsis." So in this instance, 9:8 (translated): " ... asked,
'Isn't this the one who was sitting and begging?' 9:9 then says, "Others
were saying, "He's the one [but the Greek is simply hOUTOS ESTIN: "this one
is"--to make it clear that hOUTOS is the predicate here we must add the
subject, "he" and then I've translated hOUTOS as 'the one']." 9:9
continues: "Others were saying, 'No, but [he] like him" [In this instance
the subject is omitted in the Greek but is clearly understood, while
English requires at least a pronoun place-holder for the subject]. Then 9:9
continues, literally: "But that one kept saying, 'I am [the one]'" [So here
the predicate word which I've translated 'the one' is omitted because it
continues to carry forward what has been understood since 9:8 as "the one
who was sitting and begging."
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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