From: Iver Larsen (iver_larsen@sil.org)
Date: Wed Dec 05 2001 - 04:14:06 EST
Denny Diehl had an excellent question which got me thinking in new ways.
>
> >> I have a query concerning John 3:8,
> >>
> >> TO PNEUMA hOPOU QELEI PNEI, KAI THN FWNHN AUTOU AKOUEIS,
> >> ALL' OUK OIDAS POQEN ERCETAI KAI POU hUPAGEI hOUTWS ESTIN
> >> PAS hO GEGENNHMENOS EK TOU PNEUMATOS.
> >>
> >> Most translations put, 'The wind blows where it wishes etc.' whereas
> >> Jay Green in his MKJV has, 'The Spirit breathes where He desires etc.'
> >> Apparently John Wycliff translated it the same as Green.
(snip)
> >
> >> It makes it harder when PNEUMA and PNEI both have double meanings.
> >
> > As far as I know the only place in the NT other than perhaps Jn 3:8
> > where PNEUMA is translated by wind is Heb 1:7
> >
> > "Who makes His angels winds..."
> >
> > being a quote from
> >
> > "He makes the winds His messengers"
> > -Psm 104:4
> >
> > Is there another "wind" translation of PNEUMA in the NT?
No, there is no other place. The most common Greek word for wind is ANEMOS.
However, as Clay has shown, the Hebrew ruach with the broad meaning of
"wind, breath, spirit" is normally translated by PNEUMA, not ANEMOS, in the
LXX. And this is the contextual background for both John 3:8 and Heb 1:7
since Jesus would have used the word ruach when he spoke to Nicodemus and
Heb 1:7 quotes the LXX translation PNEUMATA of the Hebrew plural ruchot.
Clay commented:
> As Carl has pointed out already, translating the first half of this as Jay
> Green did destroys the figure of speech. Perhaps we can forgive
> Wyclif* for this but Jay Green has no excuse.
I had never thought that Wyclif was the father of dynamic translations, but
maybe you are right, Clay -:)
The common translation with English "wind" certainly loses some of the
intended meaning. It is part of the original background that God sends his
wind, because it is his breath or spirit. The modern reader thinks of wind
as inanimate without a will. It does not make much sense to say that the
wind blows where it wishes to blow. It comes from a high pressure point and
blows towards a low pressure.
How can we avoid losing that part of the meaning which says that it is God
who sends the winds as his messengers just as it is God who sends his Spirit
where he wants to send it?
In this connection I noted that Acts 2:2 uses the related word PNOH which is
a good correspondence to ruach. I went back and changed my translation of
the dynamic version of the NT into Danish I am working at. It used to talk
about the sound of a mighty wind, but now it says the sound of a mighty
"aandepust" which gives the picture of someone great blowing or breathing on
all who are in the house. This new translation helps the reader to make a
closer connection to John 20:22.
For John 3:8 I am considering making explicit that it is God who sends the
wind and therefore him that decides where it is to go. It is difficult to
handle the double meaning in translation, so this is one place where a
footnote is needed.
Iver Larsen
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