No.Douglas Nast wrote: ↑March 31st, 2017, 1:27 pmThis struck me as absurd, since the imaginative association between the moon and femininity is a virtually universal cultural reference point, and a literal translation could not be misunderstood by any English reader.
I rushed to the references and found that all the English translations rendered this as "its light". I starting frothing at them mouth to everyone I could find, then I checked the King James and found it rendered this as "her light".
I won't give all the obvious reasons supporting the literal translation here, since on the face of it this is a no brainer.
Let's start with this:
The article for the sun and the moon is not consistent across languages. A Frenchman, a German, and an American look at the moon. In French it is la lune - feminine, in German it is Der Mond - masculine, in English it is the moon - articles do not carry gender in English. Pronouns agree with noun in gender, so a Frenchman will say "she is pretty today ", a German will say "he is pretty today", and an American will say "it is pretty today". It is the same way with Greek.The imaginative association between the moon and femininity is a virtually universal cultural reference point
If you translate Greek into German, you use the masculine article for the moon because it is Der Mond in German. The gender of an article is not an inherent part of the meaning of the word it refers to, and it is arbitrary across languages. For instance, here is an example from Mark Twain's essay:
Please take the time to read the Mark Twain article. I posted that for a reason. You really don't have a clue about how gender works in languages, and that's fine for a beginner, but you will learn faster if you listen with some curiosity and try t understand what others are saying and why. You getting the same message from your teacher, forum participants who know much more Greek than you do, and all English translations since the KJV - when you see that kind of pattern, it's usually a good time to stop frothing at the mouth and start listening and doing a little research.Gretchen: Wilhelm, where is the turnip?
Wilhelm: She has gone to the kitchen.
Gretchen: Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?
Wilhelm: It has gone to the opera.