Eph 2:4 ἠγάπησεν

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MAubrey
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Re: Eph 2:4 ἠγάπησεν

Post by MAubrey »

Jason Hare wrote:This is where using accents in your Greek would be useful to the rest of us. Do you mean ἀγαπᾶν (as in the present active infinitive of ἀγαπάω, the standard lexical form)? How can we know that you're not just typing the word ἀγάπην wrongly?
Which is basically what I assumed...(sorry, David).

Using infinitives as a base form is a good idea, but its' probably better to use the aorist infinitive. You can derive just about everything from the aorist infinitive, unlike the present and if you're not using accents others are less likely to confuse the forms. Randall has a great article on that point...but I can't remember where it was published off the top of my head.
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Re: Eph 2:4 ἠγάπησεν

Post by Stephen Carlson »

MAubrey wrote:Using infinitives as a base form is a good idea, but its' probably better to use the aorist infinitive. You can derive just about everything from the aorist infinitive, unlike the present and if you're not using accents others are less likely to confuse the forms. Randall has a great article on that point...but I can't remember where it was published off the top of my head.
Are you thinking of: Randall Buth, “Verbs Perception and Aspect: Greek Lexicography and Grammar,” Biblical Greek Language and Lexicography: Essays in Honor of Frederick W. Danker, ed. B. Taylor, J. Lee, R. Burton, and R. Whitaker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 177-198?
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Re: Eph 2:4 ἠγάπησεν

Post by RandallButh »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
MAubrey wrote:Using infinitives as a base form is a good idea, but its' probably better to use the aorist infinitive. You can derive just about everything from the aorist infinitive, unlike the present and if you're not using accents others are less likely to confuse the forms. Randall has a great article on that point...but I can't remember where it was published off the top of my head.
Are you thinking of: Randall Buth, “Verbs Perception and Aspect: Greek Lexicography and Grammar,” Biblical Greek Language and Lexicography: Essays in Honor of Frederick W. Danker, ed. B. Taylor, J. Lee, R. Burton, and R. Whitaker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 177-198?
Yes, I advocate using real words when discussing any language, especially by learners.
So infinitives ἀγαπᾶν and ποιεῖν are a big headstart over *ἀγαπάω and *ποιέω. [Yes, I am aware that *ποιέω exists in Ionic, thank you kindly.]

However, the aorist infinitive does not fully mark the inflexional class.

γελάσαι 'to laugh' and τελέσαι 'to finish' are able to mark their class,
but ἀγαπῆσαι and ποιῆσαι do not distinguish their class and are the more common shape.
Fortunately, the continuative, marks its class:
πληροῦν (-ο), ἀγαπᾶν (-α), ποιεῖν (-ε).
Middles work the same way. The continuative is unambiguous.

Consequently, I typically talk about verbs with aorists like ποιῆσαι 'to do'
but I present vocabulary to students with two forms (ποιῆσαι ποιεῖν) so that they get both 'to do' and 'to be doing' and can hear the appropriate category.
and I recommend saying to oneself ποιῆσαι ποιῆσαι ... ποιεῖν ('to do, to do, ... to be doing'), in that order.
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Re: Eph 2:4 ἠγάπησεν

Post by Shirley Rollinson »

Something went wrong with you quoting above, Shirley. Multikey is an excellent resource, which enables the user to type more than just polytonic Greek, if there should ever be a need to do so, but the polytonic Greek works just fine. As for accents, sure it's a later development, but still one developed in antiquity part of the purpose of which was to help non-native speakers of Greek better learn the language. So let's not be to dismissive of them. Such an acute rejection could have grave results, but let's stay roundly flexible on the whole subject.

Multikey may be obtained here: http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/multikey/

It works fine with Win8.
I used to use Multikey - but it kept crashing my computer and freezing my wordprocessor (MSWord).
David Lim
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Re: Eph 2:4 ἠγάπησεν

Post by David Lim »

MAubrey wrote:I'll have to take your word for it. The fact that you did indeed translate all the "redundancies" intact suggest you're still not there. The day you stop translating entirely...that'll be the day I'm convinced. I'm impressed with your determination and tenacity as well as how much you've learned over the past year, but you haven't arrived yet. You kind of remind me of me 10 years ago.
Actually the only reason why I am translating so "entirely" is that I am trying to express in English what I think the structure in Greek is. I know many people don't like that, because it is neither Greek nor English, but I don't quite like using plenty of terminology to express the same thing either. Anyway thanks a lot for your encouragement! I'll try harder. ;)
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Re: Eph 2:4 ἠγάπησεν

Post by Jason Hare »

David Lim wrote:If you noticed I did indeed translate all the examples I was referring to with the "redundancies" all intact, including "the love which [he] loved us with", and by the way I don't see anything wrong with such translations, even if such expressions are not often used in English.
Yet, even "the love which [he] loved us with" is not completely literal, since ἀγάπην is accusative. The "with" at the end of the line indicates instrumentality, which would be expressed most naturally in the dative. An absolutely literal and stilted translation would have to represent the double accusative of the Greek phrase: "the love which he loved us." Similarly, "he loved her a great love." It would have two objects without any prepositions in English, rather than "he loved her with a great love." There is certainly no reason to be overly literal in rendering the Greek, since it leaves us with nasty English.
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Re: Eph 2:4 ἠγάπησεν

Post by Jason Hare »

David Lim wrote:
MAubrey wrote:I'll have to take your word for it. The fact that you did indeed translate all the "redundancies" intact suggest you're still not there. The day you stop translating entirely...that'll be the day I'm convinced. I'm impressed with your determination and tenacity as well as how much you've learned over the past year, but you haven't arrived yet. You kind of remind me of me 10 years ago.
Actually the only reason why I am translating so "entirely" is that I am trying to express in English what I think the structure in Greek is. I know many people don't like that, because it is neither Greek nor English, but I don't quite like using plenty of terminology to express the same thing either. Anyway thanks a lot for your encouragement! I'll try harder. ;)
When you're conveying a message in English, why would you try to carry over structure from Greek? I agree with Mike that this is a weakness in your approach rather than a strength. The goal is the conveyance of the concepts, arguments and meaning from Greek into English, not a conversion of structure between the languages – which often do not share structures for given syntactical relationships.
Jason A. Hare
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Re: Eph 2:4 ἠγάπησεν

Post by cwconrad »

Jason Hare wrote:
David Lim wrote:
MAubrey wrote:I'll have to take your word for it. The fact that you did indeed translate all the "redundancies" intact suggest you're still not there. The day you stop translating entirely...that'll be the day I'm convinced. I'm impressed with your determination and tenacity as well as how much you've learned over the past year, but you haven't arrived yet. You kind of remind me of me 10 years ago.
Actually the only reason why I am translating so "entirely" is that I am trying to express in English what I think the structure in Greek is. I know many people don't like that, because it is neither Greek nor English, but I don't quite like using plenty of terminology to express the same thing either. Anyway thanks a lot for your encouragement! I'll try harder. ;)
When you're conveying a message in English, why would you try to carry over structure from Greek? I agree with Mike that this is a weakness in your approach rather than a strength. The goal is the conveyance of the concepts, arguments and meaning from Greek into English, not a conversion of structure between the languages – which often do not share structures for given syntactical relationships.
Jason, I agree with your sentiment wholeheartedly. I must say, however, that I think that most students, beginners more readily than veterans, "translate" precisely because they imagine that it will help them understand what the structure of the original-language text communicates, under the erroneous notion that the intent and true meaning of the original-language text will somehow become clear to them if they can reproduce that structure in English. To the extent that those with longer familiarity with the original language have come to appreciate and internalize its unique idiom and structural framework, they will no longer feel the urgency of Englishing the text they're considering at all, or of reproducing the structural patterns of the original-language text, because they are no longer equating the content or intent of the original text with its structural patterns. But the bane of the traditional "grammar/translation" pedagogy is its fostering of this passion to reproduce the structure of the original text in a version and to represent the words of the original text individually in their translation.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

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David Lim
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Re: Eph 2:4 ἠγάπησεν

Post by David Lim »

Jason Hare wrote:
David Lim wrote:If you noticed I did indeed translate all the examples I was referring to with the "redundancies" all intact, including "the love which [he] loved us with", and by the way I don't see anything wrong with such translations, even if such expressions are not often used in English.
Yet, even "the love which [he] loved us with" is not completely literal, since ἀγάπην is accusative. The "with" at the end of the line indicates instrumentality, which would be expressed most naturally in the dative. An absolutely literal and stilted translation would have to represent the double accusative of the Greek phrase: "the love which he loved us." Similarly, "he loved her a great love." It would have two objects without any prepositions in English, rather than "he loved her with a great love." There is certainly no reason to be overly literal in rendering the Greek, since it leaves us with nasty English.
Exactly. As you noted, I wasn't overly literal, but yet I think the English phrase I chose most accurately reflects the Greek, without being ungrammatical. It is not incorrect even though it is not common to hear people using such constructions. I also gave the more idiomatic English phrase "the love which God had for us". My point is that the Greek phrase means what I have conveyed with either of these English phrases. Let's not argue about whether I should use English phrases to discuss the meaning of the Greek phrase. If you disagree with my interpretation, can you just show me why the meaning is incorrect?
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Re: Eph 2:4 ἠγάπησεν

Post by Stephen Carlson »

David Lim wrote:Anyway I was saying that "ἠγάπησεν" has the same meaning regardless of whether it is used with its cognate noun or not.
I realize that's your opinion. That's pretty clear. What's not entirely clear how well you understand what we're saying about the difference in Aktionsart (also known as actionality, lexical aspect, situation type, procedural characteristics, Vendlerian classifications, etc.). In English, "love" is a state verb. In Greek, however, ἀγαπάω can refer to a state or an activity, depending on context, as BDAG and other lexica indicate.

Due to your heavy reliance in this thread on English paraphrases that acknowledge only stative meanings for ἀγαπάω (including the formulations "had love for" and "felt love for"), it sounds like you are assuming that English "love" and Greek ἀγαπάω must be equivalent even in terms of Aktionsart. This is a mistake, and the best way to avoid this mistaken assumption is to consult an appropriate lexicon, such as BDAG, and look at the range of meanings the verb has.
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