The new, authorized translation of Acts 7.41 is, then:
They calfdolatrized in those days, and they offered a sacrifice to their idol, and they rejoiced in the works of their hands.
The word of the Lord.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
another reason to love Greek
Earlier I mentioned ἀποτυμπανίζειν [apotympanizein], a word that I might not need often but that comes in really handy when I do. I offer today another word that I might not use everyday. But if my wife spoke Greek, this word just might reduce the number of words I would need to answer the question, "What did you do at work today, honey?" According to the Louw-Nida Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, μοσχοποιεῖν [moschopoiein] means "to make a calf-idol, to shape an idol in the form of a calf" (§6.101). I hereby coin an equally convenient English verb, to calfdolatrize, as the standard English equivalent to μοσχοποιεῖν.
The new, authorized translation of Acts 7.41 is, then:
The word of the Lord.
The new, authorized translation of Acts 7.41 is, then:
The word of the Lord.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Thanks be to God.
Of course, ἀποτυμπανίζειν has seven (or eight, depending on your dialect, i.e., Midwestern vs. Bible-Belt Greece) syllables, whereas "to cudgel to death" has but five (or six if you are from Dallas—i.e., "day-eth"). So the economy of the Greek comes only from the written word (unless of course you do not count the spaces, in which case it is a dead wash), and not from speaking it. You could always, I suppose, coin the English verb "cudgexed" to solve the issue...
I guess, but that's only if you focus solely on the physiological aspects of speaking the word (for which, of courses, the spaces are neither helps nor liabilities).
But, I would contend that the cognitive benefits of only having to summon a single word, inflected for the appropriate syntactical functions in an actual sentence, outweigh the grueling effort it takes to summon the verb ("cudgel") and then to find the appropriate adverbial phrase ("to death") to modify said verb.
And, of course, you have to remember that you've just spent considerable energy swinging a club or some other blunt object, and there was probably some chasing involved, too. . .
Fair enough, I guess. There is a certain benefit, but I would submit it only inures to those who either: a) speak/write Greek as a native language, or b) are so immersed in it as a second language that it becomes the language of thought and dream. :^\
Post a Comment