What Is The Best Translation of Luke 17:21?

Concerning entos as an improper preposition, this is a mistake made by grammarians as opposed to linguists. A grammarian will look at the word and say, "Hey, this isn't according to how A. T. Robertson (or Dana and Mantey, or...) said this word ought to be used. This is an improper use of an adverb as a preposition." However, the linguist will look at the same word and say, "Hmm. This word is used twice as a preposition but never as an adverb in these 1st century documents. We can conclude then that it evolved over the years. The classics used it one way, but centuries later it was used in another way."

Language is living and changing. In working with my Japanese linguist, "Uncle Miya," I have been amazed at how words and phrases and grammatical usages I was taught in language school 25 years ago are now obsolete. I could give many illustrations of this, but one will suffice. The Japanese keigo (polite language) word meshiagari used to be a polite word for "to eat." However, now when you go to a MacDonald's many of the young workers use it to say, "Are you going to eat it here or take it with you?" We oldsters cluck at how the language has degenerated, but really it has changed and grown, not degenerated. :type:

 

I think Smyth is wrong. (I looked up his reference.) Well, first of all Smyth's grammar is old, copyright 1920. There have been so many, many mss discovered since then, with much lexical information. So I wouldn't trust him on something like this.

Secondly, his grammar is for classical, not koine Greek. Therefore I don't think his wisdom applies for the NT usage of entos. I am well aware of the difference between a classical language and a modern one, since Japanese has a classical language that was used for almost all written documents through the end of WW2. I would put the difference here at about that between classical and koine Greek. Many of the words and Chinese characters and compounds are the same, but the grammar is really quite different. In fact, one verb form in classical Japanese means the opposite in modern Japanese! :type:

 

Well, let me put it this way. The UN requires its translators to be native speakers. So who would I trust, grammarian Smyth in 1920 or a native speaker of Greek from 300 BC who was likely highly educated (a philosopher, a historian, a poet, a thespian)? Smyth gave a whole list of what he called were improper prepositions, but I'd rather trust the native speaker of the day myself. It's not that they would be perfect, but they would be more likely in my mind to have proper grammar. I've been in Japan for 26 years, have a two year diploma from the most prestigious Japanese school of the day, yet I find myself learning new grammar even today. This is why I depend on a native speaker to correct my translation.

Or think of our first century koine example. Luke was a doctor, and they are usually very highly educated in any society. I'll have to go with Luke the doctor as using proper 1st century grammar rather than Bauer the 20th century scholar (or whoever first put the statement in BDAG), who probably got the opinion from Smyth. :type:

 

I KNOW He was speaking to some Pharisees. However, He has ONE setta rules, ONE setta FACTS, for Pharisee, Christian, & pagan alike. He didn't tell those Pharisees anything that didn't apply to everyone else. When He upbraided them for making up rules they didn't/couldn't keep themselves, dont'cha believe His words apply to ANY who make up goofy "religious" rules & inject'em into the practices of Christian worship?

 

Yeah, I'll buy Young and Wallace.

I havn't searched the patristic writers yet, but aha!! I find entos eight times in the LXX, each time as a preposition. Unfortunately the formatting came out a little strange, and also unfortunately for your rendering they all clearly mean "within."

Ps 38:4 e)qerma/nqh h( kardi¿a mou entoj mou, kaiì e)n tv= mele/tv mou e)kkauqh/setai pu=r. e)la/lhsa e)n glw¯ssv mou
Ps 39:3 my heart became hot within me. As I mused, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue:
Ps 102:1 T%½ Dauid. Eu)lo/gei, h( yuxh/mou, to\n ku/rion kai¿, pa/nta ta\ entoj mou, to\ oÃnoma to\ agion autou=:
Ps 103:1 Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name!
Ps 108:22 r(u=sai¿ me, oÀti ptwxo\j kaiì pe/nhj e)gw¯ ei¹mi, kaiì h( kardi¿a mou teta/raktai entoj mou.
Ps 109:22 For I am poor and needy, and my heart is stricken within me.
Sos 3:10 stu/louj au)tou= e)poi¿hsen a)rgu/rion kaiì a)na/kliton au)tou= xru/seon, e)pi¿basij au)tou= porfura=, entoj autou= liqo/strwton, a)ga/phn a)po\ qugate/rwn Ierousalhm.
Song 3:10 He made its posts of silver, its back of gold, its seat of purple; it was lovingly wrought within by the daughters of Jerusalem.
Isa 16:11 dia\tou=to h( koili¿a mou e)piì Mwab w¨j kiqa/ra h)xh/sei, kaiì ta\ entoj mou w¨seiìteiÍxoj, oÁ e)nekai¿nisaj.
Isa 16:11 Therefore my soul moans like a lyre for Moab, and my heart for Kir-he'res.
Dan-Th 10:16 kaiì i¹dou\ w¨j o(moi¿wsij ui¸ou= a)nqrw¯pou hÀyato tw½n xeile/wn mou: kaiì hÃnoica to\ sto/ma mou kaiì e)la/lhsa kaiì eiåpa pro\j to\n e(stw½ta e)nanti¿on e)mou= Ku/rie, e)n tv= o)ptasi¿# sou e)stra/fh ta\ entoj mou e)n e)moi¿, kaiì ou)k eÃsxon i¹sxu/n:
Dan 10:16 And behold, one in the likeness of the sons of men touched my lips; then I opened my mouth and spoke. I said to him who stood before me, "O my lord, by reason of the vision pains have come upon me, and I retain no strength.
1Ma 4:48 kaiì%©kodo/mhsan ta\ aÀgia kaiì ta\ entoj tou= oiãkou kaiì ta\j au)la\j h(gi¿asan
1Ma 4:48 They also rebuilt the sanctuary and the interior of the temple, and consecrated the courts.
Sir 19:26 eÃstin ponhreuo/menoj sugkekufwÜj melani¿#, kaiì ta\ entoj autou= plh/rh do/lou:
Sir 19:26 There is a rascal bowed down in mourning, but inwardly he is full of deceit.

 

I don’t have a dog in the race, never having studied it out.

Word Biblical Commentary notes that the verse has been the subject of extensive investigation
There are a few different views on it, among which these stand out to me.

ἐντὸς ὑμῶν ἐστιν
View 1: “is within you” – traditional
Meaning an inner spiritual reality and not a future apocalyptic transformation of the whole cosmos (Nolland, J.: WBC Vol. 35B, 853)
“t requires that “you” be taken impersonally, which is a little unnatural. It also represents a view of the kingdom of God not found elsewhere in the Gospel tradition [SNIP] …it leaves no room for a future eschatological intervention of God as anticipated in vv 22–37.”

View 2: “among/in the midst of” – modern
The kingdom of God is present in the person and ministry of Jesus
“It is likely that this sense is possible, though not common, but here again the same difficulty arises when the preceding negations are linked: there is no room for vv 22–27.” (ibid).

View 3: “in your midst” – Bultmann, et al, (History, 121–22)
“This view must first accept the possibility of giving ἐντός the sense “in your midst” and then needs to treat this idiomatically as conveying the idea of the kingdom of God being “right there,” as having arrived, while all the alert observers have failed to notice anything to base their prognostications upon. This assumes that ἐστιν, “is,” should be taken futuristically, but, in the absence of the second negation, this is a natural reading after the obviously futurist force of the present tense ἔρχεται (lit. “comes”). This view is somewhat vulnerable to the frequently leveled criticism that the key notion of a sudden and unheralded arrival of the kingdom of God must be taken as implied, because it is certainly not explicitly present. It is, nevertheless, the view that does best justice to the content of v 21, and the one view that easily makes room for vv 22–37 and does justice as well to Luke’s evident concern to link the two sections.”

The translation of this verse demonstrates the difficulties one faces while translating; we can't help but bring baggage into the translation of a text.
While not too common, there are times when there is significant interplay between ones translation and ones interpretation.

Rob

 

"In your midst" is the best translation, for the reasons given above. The kingdom in the OT was not an internal thing alone, but had external components in social justice and mercy. Jesus was pointing out that the ministry he had in their midst was a kingdom ministry but their hearts were too hard to see it.

 

Most things can be solved linguistically. The use of plural, etc., seems to limit that in this case. (If not for the plural, my understanding is that it would be "within". With the use of the plural, "among" is favored, but not clear cut.)

 

The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts [Holmes, 1992, 1999]

Ignatius to the Trallians 7.2
…τῶν διαταγμάτων τῶν ἀποστόλων. (2) ὁ ἐντὸς θυσιαστηρίου ὢν καθαρός ἐστιν, ὁ δὲ…
…to the commandments of the apostles. (2) The one who is within the sanctuary is clean, but the one who is outside the sanctuary is not clean.

Polycarp to the Philippians 3.3
…εἰς τὸν πλησίον. ἐὰν γάρ τις τούτων ἐντὸς ᾖ, πεπλήρωκεν ἐντολὴν δικαιοσύνης•…
(3) “which is the mother of us all,” while hope follows and love for God and Christ and for our neighbor leads the way. For if anyone is occupied (?) with these, he has fulfilled the commandment of righteousness, for one who has love is far from all sin.

Ignatius to the Ephesians 5.2
…μηδεὶς πλανάσθω• ἐὰν μή τις ᾖ ἐντὸς τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου, ὑστερεῖται τοῦ ἄρτου…
(2) Let no one be misled: if anyone is not within the sanctuary, he lacks the bread of God. For if the prayer of one or two has such power, how much more that of the bishop together with the whole church!

 

From my understanding, it would be "within" a person, but "among" people. Generally.

I think this is one of those tricky areas, like collective nouns, where singular is plural, but plural is really plural. Like "seed". Singular "seed" is more than one seed, but of one type. Plural "seeds" would be multiple seeds of multiple types.

So, within you, but among y'all, but it can be within each and every one of y'all if the context calls for it.

Hope that made sense when it got outside of my head.

 

Data dump

Ain't computers wonderful?

My Greek isn't good enough to know if this will be helpful of not.
Hope it is!

διήκει διὰ τοῦ σύμπαντος κόσμου καὶ ἐντὸς συνέχει,
Stobaeus’ Ecloge, (5th century A.D.) I, 289, 23

συνεῖχε τοῦ τείχους ἐντός,
Plutus, De Camillo, 23, 5 (I, 141a); cf. Polybius, (c. 210–120 B.C.), 10, 39,

μηθένα ἀλλογενῆ εἰσπορεύεσθαι ἐντὸς τοῦ τρυφάκτου καὶ περιβόλου, ὃς δʼ ἂν ληφθῇ, ἑαυτῷ αἴτιος ἔσται διὰ τὸ ἐξακολουθεῖν θάνατον
Inscription on the barrier in the temple at Jerusalem
W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graecae Inscriptiones, 1902, 598;

τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὁ ἐντὸς ἄνθρωπος
Plato, of Athens (428/7–348/7 B.C.), Respublica IX, 589a ed. J. Burnet, 1905,

ὁ μὲν ἐντὸς τῆς ψυχῆς πρὸς αὑτὴν διάλογος … ἐπωνομάσθη, διάνοια
Plato, Sophista 263e ed. J. Burnet, 1905.

ἐφαρμόζοντες τὰ ἐντός
Irenaeus, of Asia Minor, bishop of Lyons, martyred 202 A.D. during the persecution under Severus, praefatio ed. in MPG, 7, 1882.

καλοῦσι δέ τινες τοῦτο καρδίαν, οἱ δʼ ἐντεριώνην• ἔνιοι δὲ τὸ ἐντὸς τῆς μήτρας αὐτῆς καρδίαν, οἱ δὲ μυελόν,
Theophrastus, of Eresos Historia Plantarum, I, 2, 6, on Lesbos (c. 372–287 B.C.), pupil of Aristotle and important scholar, succeeding him as head of the peripatetic school in Athens, ed. F. Wimmer, 1854 ff.; Charact., ed. O. Immisch, 1923; De Igne, ed. A. Gercke, 1896.

ἐντὸς ἑκατοστοῦ σημείου ἀπὸ Ῥώμης
Herodianus, of Syria, official and historian under Septimius Severus, wrote 8 books from the death of Aurelius to 238 A.D., Historiae, II, 13, 9 ed. K. Stavenhagen, 1922.

And I picked up this from the Theological dictionary of the NT
“The whole point of this much quoted and much wrested saying is that we are not to look for signs. The question whether there is an emphasis on the presence of the kingdom of God at the moment of speaking is irrelevant, since in the original Aramaic there is no copula “is” or “will be.” It has also to be considered that the Syriac translation demands a rendering back of the Greek ἐντός into the cognate Aramaic which would give us “among you.” The saying of Jesus concerning the dating of the day of the Son of Man (Mt. 24:26f.; cf. Lk. 17:23 f.) is in full agreement. Those around Jesus had very different views of the signs and nature of the kingdom of God. Thus the sons of Zebedee, or their mother, ask concerning the best places in the kingdom, and Jesus answers that this is a matter for God alone (Mk. 10:40 == Mt. 20:23). The apostolic preaching of Paul also agrees, as in Ro. 14:17, where he tells us that the kingdom of God does not consist in eating and drinking etc.”
TDONT. 1964-c1976. Vol. 10 compiled by Ronald Pitkin. (G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley & G. Friedrich, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (1:585-586).

Rob

 

Works for me! :thumbs: :thumbs:

 

What is the best trans -of luke 17:21?

Luke 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
Why, because it comes from the preserved inherent word of God. This was the Standard for over 300 years. Just believe it by faith.
Why, because the translators (46 of them, or 52) of this passage new more languages and had more abilities then all the scholars today. 1 translator spent 16 hours a day doing this, some new 15 languages. All combined could run circles around us and already thought about what would be the best. So we can leave it up to the true Scholars.
Unless for some strange reason we might think we could correct there work. I know I do not have the abilities to correct these scholars.

Ehud