Golden Oldies
As I was studying me some Attic Greek tonight I was reminded of Hank’s retranslation of John 3:16. Hank did an excellent 5-part series on this verse and went through the translation process step-by-step. I would recommend reading reading through each of the five parts (one two three four five) to get a feel for the translation process.
His translation reads as follows:
“Thus in this manner God loved the world that he gave his one and only Son so that everyone that is believing in him will never perish but have life forever.”
I especially like two of his changes/emphases. First, Hank rightly translates the “so” in the phrase “For God so loved the world…” as “in this manner.” It describes how the love of God was shown to the world. God showed his love through a selfless sacrificial act.
The second aspect that I appreciated was Hank’s emphasis on the middle voice of ἀπόληται, or to perish. The emphasis on the middle voice demonstrates that the perishing was a result of our own actions. Restated, we perish ourselves. It demonstrates that although we have shot our selves in the foot, God action of love for us is his providing a way into eternal life despite our shooting of our own foot.
The only thing I would really change about his translation is restoring the subjunctive forms of “will never perish” and “have” in the last two clauses. The verbs are in the subjunctive form, which describe possible worlds, not actualized ones. Those that believe, by their believing enter into this possible world where they do not perish and instead have eternal life. This world is make possible by God’s giving of his son, Jesus.
My changes would read as follows:
“Thus in this manner God loved the world that he gave his one and only Son so that everyone that is believing in him might never perish but might have life forever.”
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
I have covered subjunctives pretty heavily in Latin and just a little bit in Greek. I am still not sure what type of subjunctive they are and if you translate it may, might, or some other way.
No matter what, you did do a good jorb with it overall, especially catching that middle voice.
As I re-read the translation, I think that I have no opinion as to how I would translate the subjunctive mood of the verse, i.e. may, might, etc. But I would translate the second subjunctive that says we "might have" as something like "shall have" because it captures the force of Jesus' words. Here the subjunctive is being used like, "I plugged in the printer that I might print my paper." The verb "print" is a subjunctive verb being used to communicate the idea that I will print a page, it communicates the intended purpose. I think that might be the reason why I didn't translate the subjunctive as clearly as I did, especially in the second eche.
That second occurrence is still a present tense verb with continuous aspect, which says we have it now. Jesus is very forceful here. But in regards of the first one, I think, again, I was trying to communicate the certainty that Jesus' death and God's love will prevent those who trust in Christ for their salvation from perishing in hell for all eternity. I was going for the force of Jesus' words. I think the term "may" would have been the best way to bring that out in the subjunctive mood, when I think about it.
I absolutely agree with your statement on the need to put the subjunctive verb for have in my translation. I didn't catch that because I really hadn't covered it class yet and it didn't stand out to me; and I wanted to focus the posts on the need to translate "so" as "in this manner" and "who so ever believes" as "everyone that is believing" or "all the believing ones." Good catch on that mistake, how major or minor of a mistake that is…could be a very bad one.