The easiest way to understand KAI AUTOUS, I think, is as in apposition to
the direct objects, IAKWBON ... KAI IWANNHN. The several translations are
all accurate expressions of the sense which would be a bit awkward in
English (although not unintelligible) if translated literally, "themselves
also in the boat mending their nets." As for the relative pronoun in some
of the translations, this is simply a convenient translator's ploy to
convey the sense of a Greek participle (here KATARTIZONTAS) when the
participle adds the sort of clarifying information that English tends to
express in a relative clause.
If you are relatively new to Greek, you should be aware that the
characteristic structures in which sense is conveyed in these two (or any
two) languages do not at all correspond in a one-to-one fashion, and that
therefore the translator's task is to understand what the original means in
its own structure, and then figure out what is the best way of rendering
that same sense in normal English structure. Sometimes the Greek may be
translated into English without any alteration of its structure, but
usually, except in the very simplest of concrete statements, even when that
works, there's some violation of the most normal English idiom.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/