From: Daniel L Christiansen (dlc@multnomah.edu)
Date: Thu Dec 02 1999 - 00:35:13 EST
A reply to my first post regarding GENNAW came to me personally. I believe it
was intended for the list, so am sending it in full, plus a reply to a portion
of that post.
Dave Palmer wrote:
> I've been looking a while for an example of GENNAW and KARPOS together, and
> so far I am finding the verbs POIEW, DIDWMI, BLASTANW.
>
> But along those lines of fruit, the GENNAW in Luke 1:57 I translated as
> "produce," because we have the agricultural metaphor of KARPON KOILIAS,
> "fruit of the womb," in conrast to the state of "barren," STEIRA.
> Elizabeth mother of the Baptizer was formerly barren, and feeling disgrace
> because of not being "fruitful and multiplying." So when she did bear, my
> translation of Luke says for EGENNHSEN hUION, "she produced a son."
>
> As for genealogies, you well pointed out that
> greatgrandfather-greatgrandchild relationships were included in the
> genealogies. I would also point out that in both Greek and English, PATERA
> and "father" include the idea of "grandfather" or even "ancestor," as
> neither gender nor generation-specific. Therefore, would it not be still
> workable to use "fathered" in genealogies? For then "fathered" would
> include the meaning "grandfathered," or the general idea of "cause a
> descendant." I thought it was, therefore my translation of Matthew for the
> GENNAW's in the genealogy says "fathered."
>
> And for the GENNAW in John 1:13, I had the same "generated" and "sired"
> idea as Carl Conrad.
>
> hOI OUK EX hAIMATWN OUDE EK QELHMATOS SARKOS OUDE EK QELHMATOS ANDROS ALL'
> EK QEOU EGENNHQHSAN.
>
> My first edition of the gospel of John read: "children generated, not from
> bloods, nor from body desire, nor from a man's decision, but sired by God."
> Later, deciding "sired by God" might be too strange for most people, I
> changed it to "born of God."
>
> Dave Palmer
> HoLogos@ilovejesus.com
Dave...
I would agree with most of what you say in your post. As for not locating
a "fruit" use of GENNAW, to perfectly coincide with our English "produce" such
as potatoes, apples, etc, I think I was mistaken. I couldn't think of the
passages, because there aren't any :) But, as I mentioned (or back-pedalled)
in the post, I still would go with "produce," even without those
(non-existant) passages.
One slight disagreement I have is over the force of "father" in English.
You say that it is not single-generation-specific, and can thus simply mean
"ancestor"; however, I don't find evidence of such a use in English. Of
course, we have "forefathers," but that is not the same; and, we have old
texts which use the term "father" (usually in the plural) in this sense, but
none that I am aware of in modern English standard.
Of course, Shakespeare, KJV, etc, don't count. Nor (in my opinion) should
we use examples from science fiction/fantasy (though I enjoy the genres) or
from romance novels (which I don't enjoy), since these are either archaic or
archaicizing forms of literature with either outdated or overly-stylized
vocabularies.
Perhaps there are such uses in modern literature and speech, but I am just
not aware of them. Of course, that is the question regarding translation . .
. matching the connotation and denotation of original vocabulary and grammar
with contemporary terms productive of similar intellectual and emotional
response. On the other hand, it's also true that I just like using longer
words, like "produced," instead of "born." :)
-- Daniel L. Christiansen Department of Bible Multnomah Bible College 8435 NE Glisan Street Portland, OR 97220 (Also Portland Bible College, Prof of Biblical Languages) e-mail: dlc@multnomah.edu--- B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu] To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
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