Could this be translated "The poor are blessed by the Spirit". I am interested in the reasoning more than the correct translation (or sense).Μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι
Assuming no other context except these 5 words, I would have to disagree with Jonathan here. "The poor are blessed by the Spirit" is a completely viable way to translate this sentence in isolation. οἱ πτωχοὶ is the subject of the implicit ἐστιν; Μακάριοι is a predicate adjective; and τῷ πνεύματι is a dative of instrumentality - acting adverbially to modify Μακάριοι.James Cuénod wrote:In Matt 5:5 the beatitudes beginCould this be translated "The poor are blessed by the Spirit". I am interested in the reasoning more than the correct translation (or sense).Μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι
My suspicion is that the dative would need to be attached to "Μακάριοι" rather than "οἱ πτωχοὶ" and I feel as though I should be expecting an explicit copulative verb but I'm really not sure.
Hmmm, possibly, since you are using μακάριοι as an adjective and not a verb. I'd be interested in hearing the intuition of others here. My intuition is that Greek has strong a tendency to build phrases from adjacent words, so οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι is a more likely phrase than Μακάριοι ... τῷ πνεύματι. I would have expected Μακάριοι τῷ πνεύματι οἱ πτωχοὶ if the meaning were what you suggest.Thomas Dolhanty wrote:Assuming no other context except these 5 words, I would have to disagree with Jonathan here. "The poor are blessed by the Spirit" is a completely viable way to translate this sentence in isolation. οἱ πτωχοὶ is the subject of the implicit ἐστιν; Μακάριοι is a predicate adjective; and τῷ πνεύματι is a dative of instrumentality - acting adverbially to modify Μακάριοι.James Cuénod wrote:In Matt 5:5 the beatitudes beginCould this be translated "The poor are blessed by the Spirit". I am interested in the reasoning more than the correct translation (or sense).Μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι
My suspicion is that the dative would need to be attached to "Μακάριοι" rather than "οἱ πτωχοὶ" and I feel as though I should be expecting an explicit copulative verb but I'm really not sure.
It may not be the most likely word order to express that thought, but the question was, "Could this be translated "The poor are blessed by the Spirit". I think it could, and in the case of a simple sentence like this I think one would be hard-pressed to prove on the basis of word order alone that it could not be translated this way. We all have the experience from time to time of being surprised by Koine word order that seems to depart from what is we think of as typical.Jonathan Robie wrote:Hmmm, possibly, since you are using μακάριοι as an adjective and not a verb. I'd be interested in hearing the intuition of others here. My intuition is that Greek has strong a tendency to build phrases from adjacent words, so οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι is a more likely phrase than Μακάριοι ... τῷ πνεύματι. I would have expected Μακάριοι τῷ πνεύματι οἱ πτωχοὶ if the meaning were what you suggest.
But I'm not sure that Greek can't do that kind of thing, I'd be interested in more examples. Phrases can definitely be interrupted, but does Greek typically interrupt a phrase with something that can naturally build a phrase on its own?
I think this is what I was trying to say when I said "Greek has strong a tendency to build phrases from adjacent words, so οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι is a more likely phrase".Barry Hofstetter wrote:Essentially it is the word order here -- While Jonathan is right that word order can occasionally surprise us, it normally doesn't, and when it does, there are usually good discourse reasons for doing so. Since τῷ πνεύματι follows πτωχοί there is a high probability that it modifies πτωχοί.
That seems right to me.Barry Hofstetter wrote:Even more pertinent here, why the dative? Being a Latin teacher (Latina sempiterna regit!), I checked Jerome (on the theory that he knew Greek as a living language, and occasionally seeing how he renders a passage is helpful, despite his sometimes painfully literal rendering of the Greek). He has simply the ablative "spiritu" and the first thing I thought was "ablative of specification" -- and I think that's how the Greek must be rendered as well. While a dative of instrumentality with τὸ πνεῦμα (understood as the Spirit) is not unattested (or at least is argued by some) elsewhere, I think that the passive idea in "are blessed" would pick up either agency, ὑπό, or source, ἀπό.
This is a split example.Romans 6:20 wrote:Ὅτε γὰρ δοῦλοι ἦτε τῆς ἁμαρτίας, ἐλεύθεροι ἦτε τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ.
This is an example of the dative saying what scale the relative wealth was being measured on; "rich in mercy"Ephesians 2:4 wrote:ὁ δὲ θεός, πλούσιος ὢν ἐν ἐλέει, διὰ τὴν πολλὴν ἀγάπην αὐτοῦ ἣν ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς,
The instrumental (means) dative should not be a surprise here. There is no need in Koine to use ὑπό in such a context. The dative will do the job just fine. For example:Barry Hofstetter wrote:Even more pertinent here, why the dative? Being a Latin teacher (Latina sempiterna regit!), I checked Jerome (on the theory that he knew Greek as a living language, and occasionally seeing how he renders a passage is helpful, despite his sometimes painfully literal rendering of the Greek). He has simply the ablative "spiritu" and the first thing I thought was "ablative of specification" -- and I think that's how the Greek must be rendered as well. While a dative of instrumentality with τὸ πνεῦμα (understood as the Spirit) is not unattested (or at least is argued by some) elsewhere, I think that the passive idea in "are blessed" would pick up either agency, ὑπό, or source, ἀπό.