[b-greek] Rom 4:16-17 (Translation)

From: Harold R. Holmyard III (hholmyard@ont.com)
Date: Sat Feb 10 2001 - 08:25:01 EST


Dear Moon,

You wrote:

>I have some question on the syntax of Rom 4:16-17:
>
>hOS ESTIN PATHR PANTWN hHMWN,
>KAQWS GEGRAPTAI hOTI PATERA POLLWN EQNWN TEQEIKA SE,
> KATENANTI hOU EPISTEUSEN QEOU TOU ZWOPOIOUNTOS TOUS VEKROUS.
>
>I consulted several versions, all of which render the above as follows:
>
>(a) who is the father of us all
> (b) (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,)
> (c) before him whom he believed, [even] God, who quickeneth the dead.
>
>In this rendering, (a) and (c) are considered to form a sentence, where
>(b) is a
>parenthetical remark.
>
>But I am inclined to render it as follows:
>
>who is the father of us all, as it is written "I have made thee a father
>of many nations";
>before whom he believed, God who quickens the dead.
>
>In this rendering, the antecedent of hOU is the "I" who made the promise.
>
>I wonder why many translations do not render as I did.

One problem with your rendering is that what follows a semicolon needs to
include an independent clause, but you have only two dependent clauses.
"Before whom he believed" cannot stand alone as an independent clause.
Neither can "God who quickens the dead." Putting the two dependent clauses
together does not make an independent clause. This suggests that a
semicolon is inappropriate here.

A second observation is that the translation you do not like also takes God
as the referent of the pronoun hOU. So I do not see a real difference
between that translation and yours. In Greek I think the reference noun for
hOU actually follows the occurrence of hOU and is QEOU. If Paul had written
the sentence more normally, he would have had to separate Abraham quite far
from mention of his faith:

>hOS ESTIN PATHR PANTWN hHMWN,
>KAQWS GEGRAPTAI hOTI PATERA POLLWN EQNWN TEQEIKA SE,
> KATENANTI QEOU TOU ZWOPOIOUNTOS TOUS VEKROUS hOU EPISTEUSEN.

Or he would have had to string several modifiers on God in an awkward way:

>hOS ESTIN PATHR PANTWN hHMWN,
>KAQWS GEGRAPTAI hOTI PATERA POLLWN EQNWN TEQEIKA SE,
> KATENANTI QEOU hOU EPISTEUSEN TOU ZWOPOIOUNTOS TOUS VEKROUS.

So Paul seems to have structured the sentence as he did partly for
stylistic reasons, putting QEOU in apposition to hOU in an explanatory way.

By the way, the result in English is the same whether you say "before him
whom" or "before whom." There is no difference in meaning and no change in
referent.

Thirdly, whether by commas or a parenthesis, both translations set off
intervening material. So I do not see much difference there either.

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard



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