Originally posted by tomtom232
Yes, Greek is not English. You cannot accurately translate Greek to English without great understanding of both languages.
[b]there are two verbs in the phrase, 'before Abraham came to be, i am, both linked, by a
preposition.
Whats yer point? You could say, "I am before Abraham" or, "before Abraham, I am."
"Came to be" is independent of "I am before."[/b]
yeah right, in isolation.
In most sentences where we see a past tense verb and a present tense verb, we
would assume that the action of the past verb is earlier in time than the action of
the present verb, (John wrote the book that I am reading. 'Wrote', happened before
'am reading'.) This is true in most cases in Greek as well as English. But in John
8:58, this is not the case, and we know its not the case because the preposition
'prin', 'before', coordinates the relationship between the two actions represented by
the verbs. This preposition tells us that the action of the verb in the present tense
'am', happened (or began to happen or was already happening) 'before', the action of
the verb in the past tense (came to be)
Professor Jason David Bedhun, Truth in translation, accuracy and bias in English
translations of the New Testament, page 105
A quick glance at Smyths Greek grammar reveals that what we are dealing with in
John 8:48 is a well known Greek idiom. The pertinent entry is section 1885
on verb tenses, which states, 'the present. when accompanied by a definite or
indefinite expression of past time, is used to express an action begun in the past
and continued in the present. The 'progressive perfect', is often used in translation.
Thus . . . . 'I have been long (and am still) wondering' . I think you can see
immediately that this entry applies to John 8:58, where the present verb . 'eimi', is
accompanied by an expression of the past tense, 'prin Abraam genesthai'.
Professor Jason David Bedhun, Truth in translation, accuracy and bias in English
translations of the New Testament, page 106
not so, i know that when someone asks me, 'what do you do'?, i do not reply, 'before
i was a submarine commander Robbie the chess player, i am.' Did it take a great
understanding of English grammar to know that? No, it is self evident. The
translators of the Greek text in producing the translation in the way they do have
ignored basic English grammatical construct.
Why did they want to stone him?
22 Oct '11 22:142 edits
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