From: virgil newkirk (virgilsalvage1@email.msn.com)
Date: Mon Jan 29 2001 - 19:11:36 EST
On Sun, June 28th 2001..at 13:46 Wayne wrote..
Steven, *if* Philemon 5 and Matt. 7:6 were intended to be understood
chiastically, from that I would still not consider chiasmus to be a natural
syntactic form of Greek. I would, instead, regard the syntactic forms as
being borrowed from Hebrew and imposed upon the Greek of the NT by its
Jewish writers. I have read some on the issue of chiasmus in these two
verses and at this point I buy the scholarly arguments (Dr. Black, et al)
that chiasmus was intended. There are a huge number of Semiticisms in the
Greek of the NT. It would, therefore, not surprise me in the least, to see
some Semitic syntactic borrowing, as well as the Semitic lexical and
idiomatic borrowings that we are usually more aware of. The NT is a very
Hebraic document, even though it was not written in the lingua franca of its
day, rather than a Semitic language.
To which I posed the hypothesis...
> Wayne, am I understanding you correctly that the bringing into
> another language, forms that are not natural to that language, is
something
> that was legitimately and successfully done by the New Testament writers
in
> a number of places in the New Testament? If this is true, isn't this
> borrowing of forms something that can legitimately be done as we struggle
to
> bring into many different target languages what is emphatically "said" in
> the Greek text
It was at this point in your message of response Wayne, that you only
quoted part of my message when you responded with....Virgil, you raise an
excellent question, one which others have asked also.
Unfortunately, it goes beyond the focus on the b-greek list. It would be
most welcome on the Bible translation list
I think it is important for the objection I am going to raise to this
suggestion, that the rest of what I said be posted here. Which is...
If sometimes we don't bring over into our language "the
form" something was stated in....don't we run the risk of losing reference,
impact or emphasis? Now I am not suggesting this for every instance.
However, sometimes, as you stated clearly in the above mentioned
reference....there is syntactical...lexical..and idiomatic borrowing brought
directly into another language. It would seem to me this would be an
important freedom we should sometimes have permission for, as we attempt to
put into our language what we ascertain to be what the Greek text actually
"says." What think and say Ye?
Having said this...I believe it is an important question to be answered
here on B-Greek since many here, as they are attempting to ascertain what
the Greek says...restrict themselves on certain occasions according to
different "rules" of grammar, syntax....and sometimes the rule of..." well
it's not something acceptable or correct to bring form into another
language. Yet, as I believe you pointed out Wayne, our writers of the New
Testament did just that for what I presume to be...emphasis...impact, or
perhaps...maybe to grab the attention with something ( as form ) out of the
ordinary. My question is...can the bringing of the form of the Greek into
say..English, be an acceptable "exception to the rule" of not bringing
another language's form into the target language. Sometimes, that is.
How we word something even just to ourselves...is affected by what we
give ourselves permission to do. I believe it is valuable information in our
quest of determining what the Greek text may legitimately be understood to
mean....valuable information indeed that you have offered, stating that some
of the New Testament writers used the principle of borrowing form, lexicon,
and even idioms from another language, to express whatever it was they were
trying "to say."
Wayne, with much appreciation for what you have taught me and stirred in
me....I ask again, "What say ye?
Virgil Newkirk
Salt Lake City, Utah
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