The verb changed its meaning a lot over the centuries. Outside the NT, the
meanings are:
I. to breathe, blow
II. to make cool or cold (not necessarily by blowing)
III. to cool or refresh
IV. to chill or torment
V. to dry or make dry
Within the NT, the meaning seems to be
to become cold (with no sense of blowing).
It means
cross. The Romans crucified people, and
stauros was the word for the cross they used.
What you're doing, in my opinion, is the "etymological fallacy" -- confusing the
origins of a word with its
meaning at the time of use.
For example, "hypocrite" literally means "under a judge." Over time, the meaning changed to "someone in a competition" to "someone in an acting competition" to "actor" to "someone who puts on an act of virtue."
No, He didn't say that. As far as I know, nobody translates it that way. And in the Greek,
stauros is singular, and has the meaning "cross."
The Romans crucified people all the time. Everybody knew how it worked.
I guess you mean:
ζῶν γὰρ ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἐνεργὴς καὶ τομώτερος ὑπὲρ πᾶσαν μάχαιραν δίστομον καὶ διϊκνούμενος ἄχρι μερισμοῦ ψυχῆς καὶ πνεύματος, ἁρμῶν τε καὶ μυελῶν, καὶ κριτικὸς ἐνθυμήσεων καὶ ἐννοιῶν καρδίας·
Parts of that are easy. I would translate literally:
For living the word of God is, and and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing deep enough to divide soul from spirit and to separate joint from marrow, judging the thoughts and deliberations of the heart.
That's trying to pick English words with the same range of meaning as the Greek words.
Your "functional" would work instead of "effective," though I think "effective" sounds better.
The way you've handled joint/marrow is intriguing. I'm not 100% convinced (because of the τε) but it does kind of make sense. You could read my translation that way if you replaced "joint from marrow" by "joint and marrow."
There are a lot of synonyms or near-synonyms here, which makes translation tricky. The emphasis seems to be on the
total ability of the word of God to judge thoughts. Because of the use of synonyms and near-synonyms, it's hard to say whether this passage truly supports a difference between soul and spirit or not.
Because of the emphasis on bringing hidden things to light, the word "marrow" may be more important than generally recognised, so you might have identified something there.
I've visited Manly! It's a great place.
Part of my claim to fame is that I am the first American surfer to ever surf Tasmania and dude, it was going off! I lived there for three summer months.
Thank you for the kudos!
psuchO--to breathe. Lets start there. I understand also that, "to catch your breath", or, "to take a breather" also applies to the general Greek idea of "refreshment" or, being refreshed.
Lets just say that if a 1st century Jew in Jerusalem wanted to communicate the act of breathing in Greek, they would have used
psuchO. Yet, it's figurative usage is beyond that.
I am a champion of exposing etymological fallacy and not the fallacy. Did you ever read the book "Etymological Fallacy"? I did, but sorry, I do not remember the authors name. It was helpful and I'll just leave it at that.
We can argue all day about
stauros but, could it also refer to a tent stake? I know that it is not
stauois and is therefore not plural but, one idiom to another?
If Jesus Himself said, "We cannot completely build a house or, fight a battle" with partial info, without the complete info necessary then, I am vindicated in the usage of
stauros. And that, in spite of any pastors teaching, or lexicons, of "bearing crosses".
Really, have we all been called to live, and expose, the
zOE-life of God's promised joy or, "bear crosses?" Are we all called to be glorified BY GOD according to Romans 8? Or, are we here to glorify God?
My own glorification by God merely glorifies Himself. So, I am here as a witness and testimony of God's glorification. Otherwise, I'M a GENIUS! Which is ridiculous.
In other words, if I look good to others, then God looks good, to others, as my Shepherd! We should all live as God's testament and witness of His glory. Sorry to tell you this but, truly not sorry but, glad as can be, WE ARE ALL HERE TO BE GLORIFED BY GOD! OR, is Romans 8 a lie?
I can read a lot of the Greek grammatical inflections in your translation of Hebrews 4:12. Thank you for that!
Now to your translation of Hebrew 4:12. I recognized that that is your own translation and I'm giddy about that! Dude! Do you know how rare you are? I'm just dancin'!
Your translation of
zOn(living), which is a masculine nominative singular participle(adjectival verb), in the present tense, is weak. We should never translate Greek complex participles into simple English participles. To everyone else, an English participle verb is easily recognized by the
-ing ending.
However,
zOn is a nominative(subject of the sentence) masculine(anyone, male or female) present(continuous action) participle(verbal adjective which describes the doer by it's doing i.e., surfer vs. (one who is)surfing.
You translated it simply as "living". Yet, if we add all of the grammatical inflections(alphabet soup) to this word autographed by the writer of Hebrews, then we should translate it as , "one(nominative masculine singular)-always(Greek present tense)-living--"one(anyone)-always-living", referring to the
zOE-life of God's promise to anyone whom follows with the post-positive conjunction
gar(translated "for") assigning a reason for the Word of God! And NOT that the Word of God is "alive".
Also, you added a copula(linking verb) to the text(as did the translators)--"is". In doing so you are translating a nominative masculine singular present participle, predicately. It is NOT a predicate! It is, as are all participles in Greek(because of gender and number), a substantive(adjective used as a noun).
Looking sooo forward to your response, Bill
