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Friday, September 2, 2011

A shift in focus

I'm going to shift from my translating in John's gospel. It has been a worthwhile endeavor, but I want to try to look at some familiar texts from a Greek grammatical perspective.

Romans 8:28

οἴδαμεν δὲ ὅτι τοῖς ἀγαπῶσι τὸν θεὸν πάντα συνεργεῖ [ὁ θεὸς] εἰς ἀγαθόν, τοῖς κατὰ πρόθεσιν κλητοῖς οὖσιν.

Rough Word-by word:
we know and that to the ones who love the God all (things) they work together [the God] unto good, to the according to purpose called being.

Smooth Translation:
and we know that to the ones who love God everything is working together unto good, to the ones being called according to purpose.

Notes:
Support for the addition of [ὁ θεὸς] seems split and I don't see how we can take πάντα as a nominative if we include it. While it is true that ultimately God is the one doing the working, it seems that the thought here is that "all things" are working together.

The Wescott Hort manuscript is the one including this edition. The UBS footnotes it with support from p46, A, B, 81 copsa, (eth) and Origen gr2/5 .

οἴδαμεν verb perfect active indicative 1st plural from εἴδω (I know) "we know"

δὲ post positive conjunction "and"

ὅτι conjunction "that"

τοῖς definite article dative plural masculine "the"

ἀγαπῶσι verb present active participle dative plural masculine from ἀγαπάω (I love) "ones who love"

τὸν definite article accusative singular masculine "the"

θεὸν proper noun accusative singular masculine "God"

πάντα adjective nominative plural neuter "all (things)"

συνεργεῖ verb present active indicative 3rd singular from συνεργέω (I work together, I work with) "they (it) work together, they work with" (note: plural neuter nouns can have a singular verb)

[ὁ definite article nominative singular masculine "the"

θεὸς] proper noun nominative singular masculine "God"

εἰς accusative preposition "into, unto"

ἀγαθόν adjective accusative singular neuter "good"

τοῖς definite article dative plural masculine "the"

κατὰ accusative preposition "according to"

πρόθεσιν noun accusative singular feminine "purpose"

κλητοῖς adjective dative plural masculine "called"

οὖσιν verb present active participle dative plural masculine from εἰμί (I am) "being"

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