Monday, April 25, 2005
NT Greek: Status
We are a little more than a week away from the NT Greek exam (May 4).
I have now read and translated the set texts (Mark 8-10, John 18-21) several times - I will post my remaining notes here soon. For the curious, I used the NA26 text (and WH w/ Strong) with e-sword when at the computer, and Merk Editio Decima as paper copy. It is now time for a quick review of grammar and vocabulary.
There would then be the big issue of translation itself (traduttore, traditore). As my notes clearly show, I will probably adopt an overly literal style. The problem in my case is that, this being a sort of NT Greek 101 course (although a 101 course has probably less material), you don't know what the examiners really want to see, so I'll try to render the text quite literally (trying not to fall into writing meaningless or just plain wrong English - and hopefully without big misunderstandings of the Greek text itself).
At any rate, I should definitely remember some of the concluding statements of the document "L'interpretazione della Bibbia nella Chiesa", issued by the Catholic Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1993 (a reading I certainly recommend; Italian and German editions are available online; there is also an Introduction, in Italian only, written by the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger):
I have now read and translated the set texts (Mark 8-10, John 18-21) several times - I will post my remaining notes here soon. For the curious, I used the NA26 text (and WH w/ Strong) with e-sword when at the computer, and Merk Editio Decima as paper copy. It is now time for a quick review of grammar and vocabulary.
There would then be the big issue of translation itself (traduttore, traditore). As my notes clearly show, I will probably adopt an overly literal style. The problem in my case is that, this being a sort of NT Greek 101 course (although a 101 course has probably less material), you don't know what the examiners really want to see, so I'll try to render the text quite literally (trying not to fall into writing meaningless or just plain wrong English - and hopefully without big misunderstandings of the Greek text itself).
At any rate, I should definitely remember some of the concluding statements of the document "L'interpretazione della Bibbia nella Chiesa", issued by the Catholic Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1993 (a reading I certainly recommend; Italian and German editions are available online; there is also an Introduction, in Italian only, written by the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger):
I fondamentalisti, pretendendo di ridurre gli esegeti al ruolo di traduttori (ignorando che tradurre la Bibbia significa già fare opera di esegesi) e rifiutando di seguirli più avanti nei loro studi, si rendono conto che, per un’encomiabile preoccupazione di piena fedeltà alla Parola di Dio, si incamminano in realtà su strade che li allontanano dal senso esatto dei testi biblici, come anche dalla piena accettazione delle conseguenze dell’Incarnazione.This phrase gives some sense to the NT Greek course itself: a starting point that should allow those who have a "preoccupazione di piena fedeltà alla parola di Dio" (this should really be a synonym for "Christian"), to continue, in a scientific way, in a study (says also the document above)
il cui scopo principale è l’approfondimento della fede.Amen.
