From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Jan 03 2000 - 06:48:32 EST
At 11:58 PM -0600 1/2/00, Mark Duwayne Stephens Sr. wrote:
>In the KJV the text starts out with "The same was in the begining...."
>But in other translations it reads "He was........."
>
>I am very new to this so if someone could give me understanding please do
>so.
The Greek text is hOUTOS HN EN ARCHi PROS TON QEON. Here hOUTOS is the word
translated "the same" in KJV and "he" in other versions; the fact that
hOUTOS is a demonstrative pronoun ("this one," "this very one") accounts
for the KJV translation; however, it is very common in idiomatic Greek to
use the demonstrative pronoun to refer back to a noun already indicated in
the sentence or sentences immediately preceding--which is to say, "he was
..." is more idiomatic English, even if it is not "literally" equivalent to
the Greek.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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