From: Bart Ehrman (behrman@email.unc.edu)
Date: Fri Sep 22 2000 - 10:39:39 EDT
Apologies for the neologism, but I'm working with Ignatius here....
Ignatius was in a hurry and, frankly, had a few other things on his
mind. Whatever the reasons, his letters are frequently, uh, rushed. I
have a BIG question about what to do with them. Does the translator work
to make sense of the thoughts Ignatius was expressing, and correct his
grammar in order to do so? Or does s/he leave the sundry inconcinnities
(and mistakes) to give a sense of the "tone" of the letters?
It's a particularly pressing question with regard to the occasional
anacolouthon. For example, off the bat, first letter, first paragraph
(you can skip the Greek if you want simply to answer the bigger question
without a specific in mind): APODEXAMENOS EN QEWi TO POLUAGAPHTON SOU
ONOMA, hO KEKTHSQE FUSEI DIKAIAi KATA PISTIN KAI AGAPHN EN XRISTWi IHSOU,
TWi SWTHRI hHMWN, MIMHTAI ONTES QEOU, ANAZWPURHSANTES IN hAIMATI QEOU TO
SUGGENIKON ERGON TELEIWS APHRTISATE.
Well, that's supposed to be a sentence (or two sentences). Some
translators make it into a sentence (or two sentences); others leave the
hurried sense, which then is very difficult to construe in English.
My basic question is not so much with how to translate this particular
passage from Eph. 1:1 (I've thought, though, about translating SUGGENIKON
ERGON as " the work we have in common as members of the same family"; why
use two words when twelve will do?), but what to do with the problem
generally.
Any opinions/thoughts would be most welcome.
-- Bart Ehrman
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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