Monday with Mounce

Do you read your translation out loud? Even in first year Greek class, I think this is a valuable exercise and will change the way you translate.

If you have seen the new movie, “The Chosen,” you will perhaps have a fresh look look at the character of the “Samaritan woman.” Some people think she was a prostitute, but is there any evidence that this is so?

Greek wants to start sentences with a conjunction, showing the linkage between the new sentence and the previous one. However, καί can be nothing more of a “daaa” or “ummm.” It does not necessarily imply sequence as it does in English. When we translate it as “and,” sometimes it creates problems that don’t need to exist.

I will be taking a break from my Monday with Mounce blog until September. I have a book to finish and my first grandchild to enjoy. But I will continue doing the Bible Study Greek blog, Translation Thursday. You may want to subscribe to that feed.

One of the more peculiar phrases in the Pastorals is in 1 Tim 5:3. “Honor widows who are truly widows (τὰς ὄντως χήρας).” A word-for-word translation creates something meaningless, and yet most of the translations just translate the words and leave it at that (NASB, ESV, NRSV, NET). “Truly widows?” You mean their husbands truly must be dead? What else could that phrase mean? I guess no widow could be cared for by the church if her husband were just pretending to be dead.