From: Mike Sangrey (mike@sojurn.lns.pa.us)
Date: Sun Nov 26 2000 - 08:11:21 EST
> On 11/25/00 8:29 PM, Rob Somers wrote:
>
>> Ok then, simply what I would like to know is this: -- what is with the
[;]
>> in this passage? It is not in my UBS GNT -- however, my NASB translates
>> this as a question. Is it a question James asking, or a statement?
>
Steven R. Lo Vullo wrote:
> Rob,
>
> I consulted a multitude of translations (KJV, NKJV, ASV, NLT, NIV, RSV,
> NRSV, NJB, NAS, NAS '95, NAB), and each one translated interrogatively
> except NJB. (This, of course, proves nothing more than that more scholars
> seem to prefer the interrogative approach.)
Dr. Ellis Deibler recently taught me some things about rhetorical
questions: Different languages use this formal device in different ways.
The result is sometimes a rhetorical question in the original is best
translated as a statement. Unfortunately I don't have his examples
readily at hand.
One example which comes to my mind is Mark 4:38. There is some question
as to whether this is a rhetorical question; however, Jesus apparently
takes it as such since he never answers it. It very well may be better to
translate
DIDASKALE, OU MELEI SOI hOTI APOLLUMEQA;
as
Teacher, help us! We're about to drown!
The NIV has "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?", which comes across in
English as quite insulting (at least to my ear). Was that tone part of
the original? I don't think so. Or, at the most, I think it very unwise
to draw out any of that sense even though it is apparent in the English.
If you were to research the rhetorical questions in the GNT and
cross-reference them to various modern English translations, you would
find several instances where they are translated as statements. I'm
really not saying anything new, just possibly something which is not
broadly known.
--
Mike Sangrey
mike@sojurn.lns.pa.us
Landisburg, Pa.
It's OK to think differently, just think together.
Sooner or later that will bring out our faults;
then we can deal with them...together.
---
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