Luke 6:27 εχθρους

[Jean Putmans]

Question on Luke 6:27

αγαπατε τους εχθρους υμων

εχθρος = Adjective = a) passive meaning: being hated; b) active meaning : hating (LSJ, Passow, Pape)

ο εχθρος = The enemy (noun)


My problem with this word is, that the Goth took the noun in its adjectival meaning, so the Gothic bible here has: "the ones that hate you".

The simplest solution would be, to treat this Gothic rendering as a mistake and correct it (could be done with good reasons).

But still one has to be able - in some way - to explain, how the Goth came to his translation - deviating from other occurances in the Gothic bible - :

"Love the ones, that hate you"

He probably took the word εχθρους in its adjectivel meaning (either by mistake or because his Vorlage omitted the article τους).

The question is:
How can εχθρους υμων be translated?
Turning υμων into the Subject or into the Object of the phrase, or are both explanations (passive and active meaning) possible.

Regards

Jean

[Jason Hare]

Who is "the Goth"?

[Jean Putmans]

Dear Jason,

"The Goth" is the person (or one of the persons), that translated the Bible (or at least parts of it) into the Gothic Language, probably in the last quarter of the 4th century Common Era.
A long time scholars were convinced that Ulfila (a Bishop of the Goths) had translated the bible, all by his own, nowadays most scholars take it, that it was translated b=y at least a couple if not a whole team of translators (maybe with Ulfila as a manager).

I am so used to use this terminus as designation of the translator, that I forget, that not everybody knows what it means.

Regards

Jean

[Jason Hare]

I am so used to use this terminus as designation of the translator, that I forget, that not everybody knows what it means.

Thanks for that, Jean.

Do you read the Gothic language yourself? Is that your area of expertise? I'm not at all aware of that language.

Would you then take οἱ ἐχθροὶ ὑμῶν to be the same as οἱ μισοῦντες ὑμᾶς based on the Gothic translation? I would imagine that those who are enemies hate one another. They hate you, and you hate them. Couldn't you understand it this way?

[Jean Putmans]

"expertise"??? Well I'm trying to become one ...

I Studied German Language 40 Years ago (Gothic then was standard part of the Curriculum, being the oldest germanic Language extant in some parts of a greek-gothic bible translation) , worked as a translator, and now - being retired - picked it up again. Having been a translator all my working life, I am interested in the translational technique, so I started comparing in detail the Gothic Text with the Greek texts (we don't know, which "Vorlage" = greek Manuscript(s) and some influences of the Itala - the translator has used; we just know, it is chiefly a Byzantine-text) .

To Lk 6:27
In fact you are right, the translation per se is understandable, but not at all in line with the usual habits in the Gothic Bible.

The problem her is, that all other occurrences of ο εχθρος are rendered with the Gothic noun "fiand" (German "Feind", Dutch "vijand", English "enemy"), just her in Luke 6:27 the Gothic translator has chosen a participle construction, which would have been a good rendering for μισεω, but at least a very strange rendering of "τους εχθρους".

So now I am trying to reconstruct, what the Gothic translator here did: Misread the Original and just saw "εχθρους" or having a Greek Ms. with an omission of the article τους and taking that as an adjective? Or did he possible misread the whole passage and read μισουσιν here and in the second phrase again (they just were people like You and me, making mistakes)?

Regards


Jean

[Jason Hare]

"expertise"??? Well I'm trying to become one ...

Good luck in your endeavors!

The problem her is, that all other occurrences of ο εχθρος are rendered with the Gothic noun "fiand" (German "Feind", Dutch "vijand", English "enemy"), just her in Luke 6:27 the Gothic translator has chosen a participle construction, which would have been a good rendering for μισεω, but at least a very strange rendering of "τους εχθρους".

Could you attach a picture of what the Gothic translation looks like? It sounds interesting. (Note that "her" = αὕτη and "here" = ὧδε (= ἐν τούτῳ τῷ τόπῳ).)

So now I am trying to reconstruct, what the Gothic translator here did: Misread the Original and just saw "εχθρους" or having a Greek Ms. with an omission of the article τους and taking that as an adjective? Or did he possible misread the whole passage and read μισουσιν here and in the second phrase again (they just were people like You and me, making mistakes)?

Perhaps they wanted to distinguish these instances of ἐχθροί from military enemies and to be clear that it wasn't military, but that it referred to anyone with whom you are set at variance. Not knowing Gothic at all, I can't really offer much.

[Jean Putmans]

The numbers below the words correspond (Greek-Gothic). So one can immediatly see, the Gothic follows the Greek almost like an interlinear.


akei izwis qiþa þaim hausjandam:
1 2 3 4 5
frijod þans hatandans izwis;
6 7 8 9
waila taujaid þaim fijandam izwis
10 11 12 13 14


Ἀλλ’ ὑμῖν λέγω τοῖς ἀκούουσιν,
1 2 3 4 5
Ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑμῶν,
6 7 8 9
καλῶς ποιεῖτε τοῖς μισοῦσιν ὑμᾶς,
10 11 12 13 14


Some explanation may be needed :

Gothic þ (so called: Thorn) Pronunciated like th in Gothic.

εχθρος always (also in the parallel verse Mt 5:45; so it's not limited to "military" use) is translated with the noun fiands (never with a Verb).

μισεω in most cases is rendered with the Gothic verb fijan (to hate, despise; Nr 13 fijandam = fijan Act Pres Part Mask Pl Dat) but never with a noun!

The form fijandam however, might as well be the Dat Pl of the noun fijands.

The easiest explanation would be: switching Gothic 8 and 13, making the grammatical structures at each place fitting to the rules, and everything seems to be OK.

But that is just one possibility, to solve the "riddle". I am looking for other possibilities, so that is, why I want to know, whether the Greek εχθρους υμων could give possibilities, to explain here the use of hatandans (hatan = to hate someone; Here: Act Pres Part Mask Plur Acc).


Regards

PS: Thanks for the wishes! I am happy with this forum, because there are no forums concerning the Gothic Bible.

Jean

[Barry Hofstetter]

I am so used to use this terminus as designation of the translator, that I forget, that not everybody knows what it means.

Thanks for that, Jean.

Do you read the Gothic language yourself? Is that your area of expertise? I'm not at all aware of that language.

Would you then take οἱ ἐχθροὶ ὑμῶν to be the same as οἱ μισοῦντες ὑμᾶς based on the Gothic translation? I would imagine that those who are enemies hate one another. They hate you, and you hate them. Couldn't you understand it this way?

What I know about Gothic can be engraved in large Gothic script on my thumbnail... But, in Greek, a military enemy is usually ὁ πολέμιος (not a NT word), a personal enemy ὁ ἐχθρός, the hostis/inimīcus distinction in Latin.

[Jean Putmans]

Thanks Barry,

the semantic part of εχθροσ is clear;

εχθρουσ υμων ???

would υμων turn into an Object or into a Subject in the explanation: "The ones that hate you" or "The ones you hate" or are both possible?

Regards

Jean

[Jason Hare]

What I know about Gothic can be engraved in large Gothic script on my thumbnail... But, in Greek, a military enemy is usually ὁ πολέμιος (not a NT word), a personal enemy ὁ ἐχθρός, the hostis/inimīcus distinction in Latin.

Touché. Yes, οἱ πολέμιοι is indeed military enemies. I was thinking more of death being "the final enemy" in 1 Cor. 15. Figured it was bigger than just a person that opposes you. Since the NT doesn't use πολέμιος, I'm not sure what conclusions we can draw from its texts specifically. I will look it up in BDAG later (unless you want to beat me to it, since you have an electronic version). Perhaps it was used in other contemporary works that might bring bearing to the question. I would think that maybe ἐχθρός was the general term for any kind of enemy in the NT.

Anyway, thanks for reminding me of πολέμιοι.