Theophilus of Antioch to Autolicus (2. 36. 17 "or 18")

[Girgis Boshra]

I couldn't translate this sentence found in Theophilus of Antioch to Autolicus (2. 36. 17 "or 18"), he quoted it from PROPHECIES OF THE SIBYL:
"ἄνδρες ἐν ὀστήεσσι, φλέβες καὶ σάρκες ἐόντες."
Can anyone help me!

[Stephen Hughes]

"ἄνδρες ἐν ὀστήεσσι, φλέβες καὶ σάρκες ἐόντες."
Can anyone help me!

Allow me to try a paraphrase:
ἄνθρωποι ἐν ὀστέοις, φλέβες καὶ σάρκες ὄντες.

[Ken M. Penner]

Nicely done, Stephen!
It's from what's now called Sibylline Oracles Fragment 1.14.

[Barry Hofstetter]

"ἄνδρες ἐν ὀστήεσσι, φλέβες καὶ σάρκες ἐόντες."
Can anyone help me!

Allow me to try a paraphrase:
ἄνθρωποι ἐν ὀστέοις, φλέβες καὶ σάρκες ὄντες.

Yes, the forms are Ionic, and you've Atticized them (Koine'd them?)

[Stephen Hughes]

Allow me ... a paraphrase:
ἄνθρωποι ...

... you've Atticized them (Koine'd them?)

Processing Greek dialects into the familiar (Attic Koine) dialects to understand them, is one way of arriving at comprehension. I do that when reading English texts with non-standard spelling like Chaucer, listening to Chinese speakers from out of town, or encountering speakers of unfamiliar varieties of English. May as well use it for Greek too.

Speaking more broadly, let me say, using ἄνθρωποι for ἄνδρες in the paraphrase was to make the point that I think that in the idea of ἄνδρες is referring to people as "the noble ones", or "the virtuous ones", or whatever connotation ἄνδρες (="people") had in an epic (prehistoric) honour and social context, not to males only. That loses quite some nuance. On the other hand, if the state of the meanings in the New Testament is that ἄνδρες are males as opposed to γυναῖκες, and ἄνθρωποι are distinguised from Θεός or ζῷα, then changing the word during paraphrasing is necessary. That is because if ἄνδρες are distinguished from θεοί in epic texts, then they are to some degree or another comparable enough to need distinguishing. Kings, princes, then nobles, warriors on the battle field, and finally emmerging specialist professions within society, are somehow a step above the masses. Human beings, dignified, honoured or otherwise can be expressed adequately, but not completely by ἄνθρωποι in our Koine period.