The title is more far-reaching than I can really support. It’s just a notion I have for now as a result of working through the Greek text of Matthew and now the first three chapters of Mark in comparison with the NIV and other translations.

I get the sense that there are three ‘registers’ to the NIV translation. Yes, I know ‘register’ isn’t exactly the right word to use here, but it conveys what I mean. I guess that I want to say I think the ‘dynamicity’ (is that a word) of the NIV appears to be correlated in the following manner in Matthew and at least the first three chapters of Mark:

• OT Quotes in NT: Fairly literal in translation
• “Normal” text: Dynamic
• Words of Jesus (text in red): Fairly dynamic

I can see the OT quotations as being in a sort of higher register, a “thus saith the Lord” style of register. Appealing to older wisdom, quoting an esteemed source authoritatively. Sorta like we appeal to KJV-ish speech sometimes (e.g., “we all could do that kind of thing; remember, ‘but for the grace of God, there go I.’ ”).

The words of Jesus caught me off guard though. Yes, they’re not always translated “fairly dynamically”. But check out Mark 3:28:

NA27: Ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πάντα ἀφεθήσεται τοῖς υἱοῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὰ ἁμαρτήματα καὶ αἱ βλασφημίαι ὅσα ἐὰν βλασφημήσωσιν·

NIV: I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them.

LEB:* Truly I say to you that all the sins and the blasphemies will be forgiven the sons of men, however much they blaspheme.

ESV: Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter,

(* LEB = “Lexham English Bible”, a new translation under way by Logos Bible Software. The NT is complete).

The differences aren’t picked up in surrounding contexts either. For whatever reason — and I must stress that my report here is anecdotal in what I’ve seen and noticed and not comprehensive — this sort of smooshing the text seems to happen more frequently (not exclusively) in words attributed to Jesus in the NIV. No, I have not checked the TNIV — one can only check so many translations.

Anyone else notice similar sorts of things? Am I on to something? Any theories as to why?

I'm presently reading E.P. Sanders’ Paul: A Very Short Introduction (amazon.com), which is part of Oxford University Press’ wonderful series called “Very Short Introductions”.

I happened across the following, though:

We should pay special attention to the degree to which Sin is treated by Paul as an enemy power. This is most clearly the case when the noun hamartia, sin, is the subject of a verb other than “to be”, as it is in Romans 5-7. (Sanders, 42)

Sanders goes on to list some instances of this phenomenon:

• Ro 5.12, Sin “entered the world”
• Ro 5.21, Sin “reigned in death”
• Ro 6.12, Sin may ‘reign’ in one’s body
• Ro 6.14, Sin may ‘have dominion’ over one
• Ro 7.8, Sin “wrought in me all kinds of covetousness”
• Ro 7.9, Sin ‘revived’
• Ro 7.11, Sin found “opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me”
• Ro 7.13, Sin “worked death in me through what is good”

All quoted text from Sanders, p. 42.

I figured “wow, I really missed out on this—never noticed this before” and figured I’d look to see where αμαρτια is the subject of a clause where the verb is not ειμι. This is a relatively straightforward syntax search in Logos 4.

What did I find? The primary place this occurs is in Ro 5-7. I also excluded αφιημι from the subject. In doing this using the Cascadia Syntax Graphs, I found 20 locations; 13 of them were in Ro 5-7:

• Ro 5.12, 13(2x), 20, 21; 6:12, 14; 7:8(2x), 9, 11, 13(2x)

The kicker is that I’d expected, especially based on Sanders’ comment quoted above, that most of the rest of the occurrences would be in the Paulines as well (and that there would be more of them). Guess what?

• Jn 9.41; Ac 3.19; 1Ti 5.24; Jam 1.15; 1Jn 3.4, 5; Rev 18.5.

Only one more instance in Paul, and that in the heavily disputed First Timothy, where “the sins” of some are “evident, preceding them into judgment”.

If I narrow it down to where αμαρτια is singular (we’re talking about “sin” and “sins”, right?) we end up with 17 hits:*

• Romans: Ro 5.12, 13(2x), 20, 21, 6:12, 14; 7:8(2x), 9, 11, 13(2x)
• Elsewhere: Jn 9.41; Jam 1.15; 1Jn 3.4, 5.

In other words, the Romans hits stay the same, but we lose Acts 3.19, 1Ti 5.24 and Rev 18.5. Sanders’ comments still puzzle me. I’ll repeat them again:

We should pay special attention to the degree to which Sin is treated by Paul as an enemy power. This is most clearly the case when the noun hamartia, sin, is the subject of a verb other than “to be”, as it is in Romans 5-7. (Sanders, 42)

It’s not his conclusion, it’s the way he sets it up: “as it is in Romans 5-7”. This leads me to think what he’s describing happens with frequency, but really, it’s just centered in Ro 5-7. In Jn 9.41, “your sin/guilt remains”. Jam 1.15 is helpful and seems to jive, “sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death”. 1Jn 3.4-5 don’t seem too applicable, v. 4 is “sin is lawlessness”; v. 5 is “in him there is no sin”.

If you’re talking about sin, Romans 5-7 is important. You don’t need to appeal to some grammatical structure to make Romans 5-7 worth discussing, particularly when that structure doesn’t really appear to happen outside of Romans 5-7 (outside of perhaps Jam 1.15).

* A search for similar structure (w/singular αμαρτια) in the OpenText.org database returned 14 hits: Jn 9.41; Ro 5.12, 13, 20, 21, 6:12, 14; 7.8, 9, 11, 13 (2x); Heb 10.8; Jam 1.15. So most of the double hits in Romans were not returned, one hit in Hebrews was added, and the 1Jn hits were lost. In Heb 10.8, the structure that OpenText.org classifies as a subject is classed as an object by the Cascadia Syntax Graphs analysis, and Cascadia’s analysis seems proper to me too.

That’s “government” for those not in the know.

I dug around ERIC (the “Educational Resources Information Center”) and found four older papers by Stephen H. Levinsohn, at least one of which sounds particularly interesting. Most of them appear to be from older SIL “work papers” volumes. Here they are:

• The Definite Article with Proper Names for Referring to People in the Greek of Acts. (paper here) A study examined the presence or absence of the article with proper names for people in the Bible's book of Acts, using four categories of description, including: (1) the unmarked patterns involving the first mention of a participant and further references to the participant in the same incident; (2) the reintroduction of participants after an absence; (3) further references to a participant in the same incident that are anarthrous as contrasted with arthrous; and (4) the use of the article with names in reported speeches. It is proposed that, in different contexts, the four situations illustrate the principle that anarthrous references to particular, known participants either mark the participant as locally salient or highlight the speech that he or she utters. A list of twelve references is included.

For the others, I’ll just list the title:

• Preposed and Postposed Adverbials in English
• Unmarked and Marked Instances of Topicalization in Hebrew
• The Interrogative in Inga (Quechuan)

Just type “Stephen Levinsohn” into the search box, and you’ll find ‘em.

Came across some stuff from Wolf Leslau at the “Educational Resources Information Center”. Six titles.

• Intermediate Amharic Cultural Reader. Final Report
• Basic Amharic Dictionary: Amharic-English, English Amharic
• An Amharic Reference Grammar
• An Annotated Bibliography of the Semitic Languages of Ethiopia
• An English-Amharic Dictionary of Everyday Usage, Part I (A-L)
• An English-Amharic Dictionary of Everyday Usage, Part II (L-Z)

The Reference Grammar is a PDF of a typewritten page with Ethiopic hand-written (with transliteration typed).

Leslau is a big name in Ge’ez studies; seeing this stuff freely downloadable seems (to me, anyway) like a big thing.

I’d never known about the ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center). It’s a .gov site … I’m still in shock that a .gov site had something of marginal interest to me.

No, I don’t have any insightful new conclusions on this, but I did run across a very interesting instance that warrants further study and research.

First, note that most grammars portray πλην as a strengthened form of αλλα, and portray αλλα as a “strong adversative” in comparison to δε, which they class as “adversative” (at least in one of the typically myriad senses). I’m not happy with that. I get the idea of a cline here, but it just seems sloppy. What, there’s an “adversative”, a “strong adversative” and a “stronger adversative”? How does that help? How does that not simply mistake contextual cues for lexical/grammatical function?

I think the insights from Stephen Levinsohn, Steve Runge and Discourse Grammar help a bit more. That is, δε indicates development; αλλα is a marker of contrast and indicates correction or replacement (again, see my αλλα paper).

But what does πλην do, then? Muddying up the works is the notion that πλην can function as a conjunction (most common) or as a preposition (Ac 15.28, cf. Robertson XIII.VIII(ai), p. 646), or as a simple adverb (Ac 20.23; Php 1.18, again cf. Robertson).

One approach is to see how the same author uses these two function words. Last night, while working through the text of Mt 26, I came upon the following that screams out to me for further examination/research:

αὶ προελθὼν μικρὸν ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ προσευχόμενος καὶ λέγων· πάτερ μου, εἰ δυνατόν ἐστιν, παρελθάτω ἀπʼ ἐμοῦ τὸ ποτήριον τοῦτο· πλὴν οὐχ ὡς ἐγὼ θέλω ἀλλʼ ὡς σύ. (Mt 26.39, NA27)

and going forward a bit, he fell upon his face praying and saying, "My Father, if it is possible, remove from me this cup; πλην not as I desire αλλʼ as you [desire]." (Mt 26.39, my own)

The synoptic parallels are interesting (thanks for pointing them out, Steve), particularly depending on how you view their composition histories. Me? I think ‘Q’ is a load of hooey, and think considering Mark as the first written and also as a source for both Mt and Luke makes sense. So here’s what Mark and Luke (respectively) have:

καὶ ἔλεγεν· ἀββα ὁ πατήρ, πάντα δυνατά σοι· παρένεγκε τὸ ποτήριον τοῦτο ἀπʼ ἐμοῦ· ἀλλʼ οὐ τί ἐγὼ θέλω ἀλλὰ τί σύ. (Mk 14.36, NA27)

and he said: “Abba Father, all things are possible with you. Take this cup away from me, αλλʼ not what I desire, αλλα what you [desire].” (Mk 14.36, my own)

λέγων· πάτερ, εἰ βούλει παρένεγκε τοῦτο τὸ ποτήριον ἀπʼ ἐμοῦ· πλὴν μὴ τὸ θέλημά μου ἀλλὰ τὸ σὸν γινέσθω. (Lu 22.42 NA27)

saying, “Father, if you wish, take this cup away from me, πλην not my desire αλλα your [desire] be done.” (Lu 22.42, my own)

So Mark uses αλλα … αλλα while Luke (along with Matthew) use πλην … αλλα. That’s very interesting too; it means that examining the higher-level discourse of all three gospel writers in this instance could shed some light on why Matthew and Luke both prefer πλην … αλλα.

Might have to consider digging into this for the ETS NW Regional meeting. It’s in February, and it’s only in Tacoma.

Update: For those keeping score at home, note that Margaret Thrall addresses this very issue in her book Greek Particles in the New Testament. Whether proper or not, you can grab a copy of Thrall from archive.org (search "Texts" for "Margaret Thrall"). The gist, apparently, is that she sees Mark as the strongest formulation, with πλην in Mt & Luke functioning conditionally in this instance. Her discussion runs from pp. 67-70. Davies & Allison (ICC Matthew vol. 3) agree with Thrall; Luz (Hermeneia Matthew 3) disagrees saying in a note "Here the adversative sense dominates". I'm inclined to go against Thrall as well but will actually read the section first (of course).

I took a bit of an extended vacation over the holidays (four vacation days, three holiday days, and two weekends = 11 days total) and during that time wanted a project to focus on completing, so I whipped through the Greek text of Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians (Lake’s text, since it is in the public domain), and ended up with a new translation and notes of Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians.

I’d translated chapter 1 earlier (late October? Early November? I don’t remember) so I finished out with the Greek portions over the week between Christmas and New Years Day. As some likely know, Polycarp’s letter has some portions only extant in Latin. I don’t know Latin, so I didn’t translate those; instead I made slight changes to Kirsopp Lake’s Latin text in consult with Holmes’ and Ehrman’s editions.

The style is the same as that of my earlier Didache translation, including notes on cross references and on some lexical and translation issues.

The result is Polycarp to the Philippians: A Translation. Feel free to download the PDF; I’d love to know what you think about it.

What’s next? Well, I have a larger project to do that will require going through the whole Greek NT (again) that takes priority. After that, I hope to perhaps dig into Ignatius’ letters.

One of the reasons why I like Robertson’s big grammar is stuff like this:

(f) THE QUESTION OF Αὑτοῦ.  This is somewhat knotty. It seems clear that as a rule αὐτοῦ and not αὑτοῦ is to be printed in the N. T. A number of reasons converge on this point. The older Greek often used αὑτοῦ rather than ἑαυτοῦ as shown by the aspiration of the prepositions like ἀφʼ αὑτοῦ, etc. In the N. T. there is not a single case of such aspiration after elision save in a few single MSS. Add to this the fact that the N. T. uses the reflexive pronoun much less than the earlier Greek, “with unusual parsimony” (Hort). Besides the personal pronouns of the first and second persons are frequently employed (Buttmann) where the reflexive might have been used. Buttmann urges also the point that in the N. T. we always have σεαυτοῦ, not σαυτοῦ. The earliest uncial MSS. of the N. T. and the LXX that use the diacritical marks belong to the eighth century, but they all have αὐτοῦ, not αὑτοῦ. Even in the early times it was largely a matter of individual taste as to whether the personal or the reflexive pronoun was used. Blass (p. 35) indeed decides absolutely against αὑτοῦ. But the matter is not quite so easy, for the κοινή inscriptions give examples of ὑφʼ αὑτοῦ in first century B.C. and A.D. Mayser also gives a number of papyri examples like καθʼ αὑτοῦ, μεθʼ αὑτοῦ, ὑφʼ αὑτῶν, where the matter is beyond dispute. Hort agrees with Winer in thinking that sometimes αὑτοῦ must be read unless one insists on undue harshness in the Greek idiom. He instances Jo. 2:24, αὐτὸς δὲ Ἰησοῦς οὐκ ἐπίστευσεν αὑτὸν αὐτοῖς, and Lu. 23:12, προϋπῆρχον γὰρ ἐν ἔχθρᾳ ὄντες πρὸς αὑτούς. There are other examples where a different meaning will result from the smooth and the rough breathing as in 1 Jo. 5:10 (αὑτῷ), 18 (αὐτόν, αὐτοῦ), Eph. 1:5 (αὐτόν), 10 (αὐτῷ), Col. 1:20 (αὐτόν), 2:15 (αὐτῷ). W. H. print αὑτοῦ about twenty times. Winer leaves the matter “to the cautious judgment of the editors.”
A.T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research ( (Logos, 1919; 2006)), 226.

BDF was not clear at all when discussing this (§31(1), according to the index).

Have you ever stopped to notice how Cornelius was introduced in Acts 10?

First, Acts 10.1-2 (the translation is a draft from the Lexham English Bible, which is almost complete now):

Now there was a certain man in Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian Cohort, devout and fearing God together with all his household, doing many charitable deeds for the people and praying to God continually. (Ac 10.1-2, LEB draft)

What do we know about Cornelius after these verses?

• Lives in Caesarea
• A centurion
• with the “Italian Cohort”
• Devout and God-fearing (was he a “God-fearer”?)
• His “household” feared God too (interpret that as you will)
• He did many “charitable deeds” for the people
• He prayed to God “continually”

That’s a lot to introduce someone into the discourse. He must be important to the story. For comparison, look at what we know about “Simon the tanner”, whose house Peter was staying at (cf. 9.42; 10.6) — not even enough to know if “tanner” described his trade, or if it was just a surname (e.g. “Simon Berseus”).

That’s not all. When does Cornie come into the story next? See Ac 10.22 for his next introduction/resumption:

And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous and God-fearing man—and well spoken of by the whole nation of the Jews—was directed by a holy angel to summon you to his house and to hear words from you.” (Ac 10.22 LEB draft)

Again, what is known/reiterated about Cornelius?

• A Centurion
• A “righteous and God-fearing man”
• Well spoken of by “the whole nation of the Jews”
• Received directions from an angel to summon Peter

Must be pretty important to have all this info about this dude. I don’t think it was an accident that the event where Peter was summoned by Cornelius (a non-Jew, a centurion, for that matter, but one who was a God-fearer and who was accepted by Jews) in this episode where Peter’s conclusion (Ac 10.34-35) is:

So Peter opened his mouth and said, “In truth I understand that God is not one who shows partiality, but in every nation the one who fears him and who does what is right is acceptable to him. (Ac 10.34-35 LEB draft)

This episode ends with the Holy Spirit being poured out on the Gentiles, Ac 10.44-48:

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all those who were listening to the message. And those believers from the circumcision who had accompanied Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and glorifying God. Then Peter said, “Surely no one can withhold the water for these people to be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as we also did!” So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay for several days. (Ac 10.44-48, LEB draft)

Who was Cornelius? Seems he was pretty important. I guess that’s why he was super-qualified in his introduction (vv. 1-2) and reintroduction (v. 22).