Re: I Cor. 1:20

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed May 06 1998 - 15:56:29 EDT


At 2:11 PM -0500 5/6/98, Jim West wrote:
>At 02:03 PM 5/6/98 -0700, you wrote:
>>"Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debator of
>>this age?" (NASB)
>>
>>Why are these nouns usually translated with the definite article when it
>>is lacking in the Greek? Does it have to do with the proper English
>>idiom?
>
>Yup.

If I may pedantically cross the I and dot the T here (if you take my
meaning), we do tend in English to use the article with a noun in the
singular when it is generalized; the same meaning, however, could have been
given in English with a generalizing plural WITHOUT an article: "Where are
the sages? Where are the scribes? Where are the orators?"

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:39:41 EDT