[B-Greek] 1 Sam 2:26
Kenneth Litwak
javajedi2 at yahoo.com
Sun Dec 28 02:38:37 EST 2008
--- On Sat, 12/27/08, b-greek-request at lists.ibiblio.org <b-greek-request at lists.ibiblio.org> wrote:
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2008 02:12:02 -0500
> From: Albert Pietersma
> <albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca>
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] 1 Sam 2:26 AGAQON
> To: javajedi2 at yahoo.com
> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
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> On Dec 27, 2008, at 1:51 AM, Kenneth Litwak wrote:
>
> > I'm looking at 1 Sam 2:26 in both Hebrew and
> Greek. Part of the
> > Greek says SAMUHL EPOREUETO KAI EMEGALUNETO KAI AGAQON
> KAI META
> > KURIOU KAI META ANQRWPWN, which seems to mean
> something like "Samuel
> > was going and was growing also good both with the Lord
> and with
> > people. However AGAQON translates a Hebrew participle
> and therefore
> > it seems that this might not be what is meant. I'm
> pondering whether
> > to try to force the Greek to have a meaning similar to
> the Hebrew
> > (since this part of the LXX is fairly
> "literal" in its rendering of
> > the Hebrew text as opposed to, say, Isaiah or Micah)
> or to try to
> > come up with a reasonable translation of the Greek on
> its own,
> > supposing that most who used the OG did not know the
> underlying
> > Hebrew. Any comments?
> "Literal" or not, the Greek means what a speaker
> of Greek would take
> it to mean. Put differently, a translation equivalent does
> not take on
> an 'usual' sense unless that sense can be shown to
> be part of the
> living language. NETS (Bernard Taylor) translates the verse
> as
> follows: "And the boy Samouel kept going and became
> great and was in
> favor with the Lord and with people."
> Al
>
Perhaps I am missing something but "was in
favor" seems like a lot to get out of KAI AGAQON KAI. It is certainly true that it is necessary at times to add a copula but this does not look like one of those times (there is not a noun immediately precedig or following AGAQON that would lead one to a reasonable expectation of the need to supply a copula because AGAQON is serving as a predicate adjective). So isn't the NETS translation being governed to some extent by the underlying Hebrew? I could see "and good also with God..." or "and good both with God..." but not "was in favor with God..." What identified grammatical construct would lead a native Greek speaker to take it this way? Thanks.
Ken
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