[b-greek] Re: I need a good English translate for greek word "MAKARIOS".

From: Jeffrey B. Gibson (jgibson000@home.com)
Date: Fri Sep 01 2000 - 12:26:17 EDT


Lynn Trapp wrote:

> Jeffrey,
> My question is how valid is it to apply the principles of 20th Century
> social science to the process of translating a 1st Century biblical text? I
> have not read either of the books you reference and think it might be
> helpful to me, and perhaps others, if you would elucidate a little more.

The real question is, of course, what tools do we use to establish what connotations
the word MAKARIOS possessed in first century Hellenism. And, since language is
embedded in culture, part of the task here is to establish the cultural and social
values of the time. Here SocSci criticism has been extremely valuable. It is
SocSciCrit that has drawn attention to the fact that first century Palestine and much
of the Mediterranean was an honour shame culture, not a guilt culture like our own,
and therefore words like MAKARIOS, which are part of the honour shame vocabulary, need
to be thought of in terms of what they conveyed within that scheme of valuation.

In any case, your implicit complaint about the value of a modern discipline in helping
establish anything about an ancient culture could be applied to almost any of the
tools now used to do this, including the "standard" means of philology and linguistics
that are typically employed on B-Greek.

Yours,

Jeffrey Gibson
--
Jeffrey B. Gibson, D.Phil. (Oxon.)
7423 N. Sheridan Road #2A
Chicago, Illinois 60626
e-mail jgibson000@home.com



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