Re: Hebrews 3:14

From: dalmatia@eburg.com
Date: Sun May 03 1998 - 12:28:21 EDT


Theodore H. Mann wrote:

> Given the context of this passage, and without violating any grammatical
> implications, can Hebrews 3:14 be translated something like: "We have
> come to share in Christ (and will continue to do so) if we hold firmly
> till the end the confidence we had at first."?

Ted ~

The answer to your question is YES, in my very humble opinion.

I would just like to draw your attention to the first clause in the
Greek, to show its structural power. [where you write, "We have come
to share in Christ..."]

METOCOI GAR GEGONAMEN TOU CRISTOU

This literally reads "Participants - for - we have become - of the
Christ". And in English this transliterates nicely with "For we have
become participants of Christ." But what this lacks, and the Greek
has, is the distribution of GEGONAMEN to both 'participants' and 'of
Christ'. Thus both the fact that we have become participants and that
we have become 'of Christ' are 'built in' to this construction. The
'we have become' is a two edged sword that works in both directions.
English cannot do this without repeating the verb. Hence we end up in
English trying to capture this power with your verb construction "We
have come to share [in Christ]", and others as well. Which is why
there really is no substitute for 'seeing' it in the Greek. which is,
after all, the language that Someone saw fit that it be written in!!
:-)

English paraphrasing is the best that we can do, usually, in English,
which is why I would love to see a Bible that shows and breaks down
the Greek in a good quality dual transliteration, line by line, of the
Greek word order, then an English literal rendering of it, parsed for
forms, as a study aid for non-Greek-competent Bible students [lay]. I
believe it would tend to draw them into more intensive study of the
Greek, as they become more aware of what Greek can and does provide,
that the English cannot.

But I dream... And pray... This is not b-greek stuff!

George Blaisdell



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