Contemplating an untranslated Greek Word

θέλημα ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ πατρὸς

will – of – the – father

Our word “of” is the translation.

Rob

 

The Greek word emprosthen (Strong's #1715) is rendered in the KJV as "before" 41 times of 48 total occurrences in the NT; additionally, it is translated as "in the sight of"/"in (one's) sight" three times, "against" just once, "in the presence of" only once, "at" a single time, and as Rob correctly stated, it is represented as "of" here at Matthew 18:14.

 

Actually, I have to go with Elk on this one. I assume you guys are looking at an interlinear where emprosthen comes up as "of," since my PowerBible program does that. However, in the Greek you have a genitive phrase after emprosthen which is tou patroV umwn, and would produce the rendering "of your father." So emprosthen is not translated with "of" here.

According to good old A. T. Robertson, "The use of emprosthen with thelêma is a Hebraism." So the KJV translators decided not to translate the emprosthen, thinking the meaning was clear enough. An overly literal translation might say, "Just so, it is not the will of your Father before him..." with the "him" being supplied by the translator, of course. Or, you could add redundency by saying, "the will of your Father in His sight...." So you have a choice. Don't translate emprosthen since it is a Hebrew idiom, or add a word or two in English and make more sense.

 

The Hebraism mentioned by Robertson runs something like, “favor before God”, we’d commonly say “favor of God”.

The Theological Dictionary of the NT notes: “... a courtly mode of address taken over by later Judaism from the courtly language of the Near East corresponding to the idea of the glory of the divine throne”.

This “it is the will before Yahweh” corresponds exactly to the θέλημα ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν of Mt. 18:14 …
[TDNT Vol. 2, Page 745]

Rob

 

Seeing the way the NT writers translated the OT is an interesting study in itself.

There are many different ways to translate, word-for-word literalism is only one of them;
and it wasn't the primary method in the NT.

Rob

 

Hi, Elk.

It is not always possible to translate an idiom literally without completely changing the meaning. Here are my notes (made elsewhere) on translating idioms:

Idioms are notoriously difficult to translate. I believe putting Greek idioms into Japanese while preserving the original meaning is one of the hardest tasks I have.

Consider. I once heard an American pitcher for a Japanese pro baseball team being interviewed after his win. He used the term "hairy," as in, "I had a hairy time there in the 5th inning." Now, would you translate that literally, the word kedarake in Japanese? You would end up with, "I had hair all over me in the 5th inning." What, did you stop pitching and let the catcher cut your hair? Did you suddenly turn into a monkey? This English idiom must be translated by a plain word meaning "difficult" in Japanese or by an equivalent idiom meaning "difficult."

When translating idioms, the exact meaning of the idiom in the original is what is most important. An idiom is "any expression peculiar to a language, conveying a distinct meaning, not necessarily explicable by, occasionally even contrary to, the general accepted grammatical rules." (Dictionary of Linguistics, Mario Pei & Frank Gaynor, p. 95). In other words, often when you translate an idiom in a strictly literal rendering, the meaning changes and you have failed as a translator.

As a Bible translator, here are my own principles for translating an idiom. Translate idioms directly in cases where the meaning comes across clearly in the receptor language. When the meaning of an idiom does not make sense in the receptor language, find an equivalent idiom or phrase to reproduce the meaning of the original.

 

The Greek word literally rendered here may have resulted in "... it is not the will before your Father which is in heaven...", or perhaps the AV men had considered "... it is not the will in front of your Father which is in heaven..." which was essentially reduced to "... it is not the will (in front) of your Father which is in heaven..."; that is, emprosthen is now represented by the English word "of" alone.

 

Sorry, franklinmonroe. Nice try but I can't buy it. If emprosthen becomes "of," then what does the genitive of "the Father" become? It remains untranslated, even though "of the Father" is the normal meaning of tou patros. In fact, how could you translate it any other way than "of the Father"?

 

JoJ, I agree with you here.Have you changed your mind?I'll have to review your posts from old threads.Perhaps it was the issue of idioms in Psalms.I had said that idioms constituted about 25% or so;you thought it was far less.
That last paragraph of yours would be in harmony with the principles of translation in the TNIV and NLTse -- among other Bibles BTW.

Meaning-based translation (MBT) -- that's a departure from the more FE-oriented methodology you used to espouse.

 

Nope, haven't changed. Sorry. :smilewinkgrin:

This may have been what I posted before on that thread, I don't remember. I had written it before and it was germane.

Actually, it just makes sense, no matter what your translation method is. I read something recently not too far from this in Nida's Toward a Science of Translating. An idiom is an idiom is an idiom, and you have to do something with it.

Not really. I still look for the straight transformation (ala transformational grammar) as per optimal equivalence. And as for meaning-based translation, that's a misleading term, because it is what all translation is. If you are not translating meaning you are not translating. The questions (and the differences) are: (1) how close do you stick to the form of the original, and (2) do you put authorial intent ahead of reader comprehension?