From: Braulio Barillas (parakal@quetzal.net)
Date: Sun Jan 31 1999 - 21:54:43 EST
>At 9:41 PM -0600 1/27/99, Jonathan Brubaker wrote:
>>I was translating my way through colossians and was a little befuddled by
>>chapter 2 verse 8.
>> BLEPETE MH TIS HUMAS ESTAI HO SULAGWGWN...(snip)
>I like that expression "translating my way through ..."--not "working my
>way through ..." or "reading my way through ..."--rather like "slogging
>one's way forward (with a machete?) in a jungle"--and the standard
>equivalent in Greek for that kind of progress is PROKOPTWN, which literally
>means something like "chopping one's way forward" but usually gets
>translated as "making progress."
>
>At any rate, I think your understand of the sense of the passage is right,
>but what the article actually does here is turn the participle into a
>substantive. If there's anything odd about the expression here, in my view,
>it is the hUMAS as object of the participle in advance even of the verb
>ESTAI which must complete the BLEPETE MH construction; on the other hand, I
>guess that hO SULAGWGWN as subject of ESTAI is extraordinarily emphatic; in
>the context, I guess it would go better into English if one makes hUMAS an
>objective genitive: "Be careful that nobody turns out to be your
>_predator_." SULAGWGWN seems here meant to be somewhat surprising to the
>reader, I think. Certainly the context suggests that the addresses need to
>be on their guard because they are not expecting to be preyed upon by the
>person(s) described by that participle. As for the construction, although
>it's probably a mistake to think of how it might be rephrased more clearly,
>I can't help but do that: it seems to me it would be clearer as: BLEPETE MH
>TIS hUMAS SULAGWGHSEI. From that perspective, I'd ask whether some
>rhetorical objective is gained by using the substantive participle rather
>than the future indicative--and to me it seems that the substantive
>participle is much more vivid: "the predator" has the sort of impact as the
>English proverbial "wolf in sheep's clothing."
>
>An interesting question, this.
>
>Carl W. Conrad
Dear B-Greek:
I«ve been thinking in the versicle, I agree with the expresse, show my mind.
The imperative (BLEPETE) implies one order: beward (lit. look up). Paul
express a fear for anyone (known for him?). The greek indicative come to
express. Similar to Gal. 1:7 Ephafras visits Paul during jail in Rome and
informs him over "Colossians' heritage", when he is inform over this
heritage, he mentions the names of false judahist teacher. So although Paul
knows the names, in this versicle there isn't mention of these names, but of
philosofy there are. The names are velar.
The participle with article is a substantive's adjetive, so in this versicle
(v.8) it refers to this item: imposture.
yours commentary. Thanks
Braulio Barillas
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