Re: GENNAW

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Tue Nov 30 1999 - 16:00:20 EST


At 1:56 PM -0500 11/30/99, Jim West wrote:
>At 01:50 PM 11/30/99 -0500, you wrote:
>> When used of a man, GENNAW is usually translated something like
>>"beget" (e.g., Ps. 2:7: "You are my son, today I have begotten you"). But
>>what does beget mean? Or better, what does GENNAW mean?
>
>Bart- generally I render it "fathered". I.e., in the geneaology of Matt. I
>translate "Abram fathered Isaac... etc"
>
>> Does it mean
>>"make a woman pregnant?" Or "to be/become the father of a child that has
>>just been born?" Or something else? Could it mean "to give birth" even
>>if applied to a man (or to a God)?
>
>I dont think "to give birth" really works when used of a male. This is one
>of those places where the science of translation has to make way a bit for
>the art of translation.

There's an old-fashioned verb, "sire," which perhaps is more appropriate to
animal husbandry than to standard GNT and patristic usage. I think that
"generate" would be a pretty good term; it may, because of English
cognates, appear rather mechanical, but this good Latin verbal root has
good credentials: from GENER-, the root of GENUS, "produce of new one of
one's kind."

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu

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