Monday with Mounce

I am sure that all languages have abbreviated ways of expressing meaning, and for a native speaker interpretation is probably quite automatic. It is something else for someone who is not a native speaker.

Pete wrote me the other day about commas and how they can affect the meaning of a passage. Acts 20:28 does have a lot of phrases, and the commas are the translators’ way of trying to help convey the meaning of the verse. But what modifies what? And perhaps, more importantly, are your elders appointed by the Holy Spirit or by people?

At the end of time, will the earth be destroyed or renewed? This is actually an important question for me. I would love to go to New Zealand, and I'm hoping that New Zealand is there after the end of all things. So will New Zealand be renewed or will New Zealand and the rest of the world be destroyed and replaced by something that will possibly be different? To say it another way, should I go to New Zealand before I die? As I dug into this question, it turns out that there is quite the theological debate on the issue.

One of the most basic rules in hermeneutics is context. As a friend of mine says, “Context is King.” But how much context? Does the issue of context extend beyond a single verse? Perhaps to the paragraph or even the paragraph before? This is the question you have to ask in translating 1 Timothy 3:11.

Someone wrote me the other day and asked why γυναῖκας is accusative, why do some translations add “the” or “their” (wives),” and why there is no verb in the sentence. If you look at the different translations, especially all the footnotes, when you see this much variety you can be assured that the Greek is not clear.

There are times I feel myself being drawn back to more of a word–for–word translation. I think that the form in which meaning is conveyed can often be part of that meaning. I see this again in Hebrews 12:1–2 were a participle is usually translated with an imperatival sense, and doing so, I think, distracts from the actual meaning of the passage.