Zoo Testimony

[All-American]

Nah, the Vulgate's not really relevant. The Vulgate is fraught with mistranslations and errors.

I mostly thought it worth noting because it does the same thing as the KJV translation: it renders the verb a transitive with an accusative direct object. It's possible that here, the Vulgate influenced the English KJV translation, as it often did.

This is what I noticed when I looked it up last night. The actual construction and a couple of nuances are lost in the translation, which is largely because a more accurate or literal translation was not possible.

What stood out to me the most was, as Solon indicated in his translation, that giving is actually not a verb but a gerundive adjective here. This lends credence to wuapinmon's interpretation, that God is a giver in general, and not just a giver of wisdom.

Especially in the context of other scriptures: "Ask and ye shall receive; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you." The impression is clearly that God is in a giving mood.

[Solon]

You'd say it's the object of αἰτείτω? If that were so, your translation should have been "If any man is found wanting, let him ask God for wisdom" or something to that effect. Besides, λείπεται often takes a genitive; does αἰτείτω? As for σοφίας being a partitive genitive, maybe I just have a flawed understanding of partitive genitives, but what is the whole of which σοφίας is a part? I thought a partitive genitive was used to say, for example, "3 of the apostles" or "many of their writings". I can understand if it is a genitive of description, or just a genitive with a special verb (as my teachers would have preferred), but I don't know that I understand why it would be a partitive. "ὑμῶν" in the phrase "Εἰ δέ τις ὑμῶν"-- THAT, I thought, was a partitive genitive.

I'm not disputing your translation, by the way; I'm just pointing out an untranslated (and perhaps untranslatable) nuance in the Greek.

You're right - I mis-typed. I consider σοφίας "the object" of λείπεται (an indicative, not an imperative), as a partitive genitive, understanding it as more of a substantive, since "wisdom" is not something easily quantified.

As you wrote, I think the best way to answer a test question on this would be to say "leipo takes a genitive", but I think it's acting in a partitive way. You lack "of" something in Greek, and that's working in a partitive sense.

I think 1341 from Smyth is closest to what I'd argue is going on here, although I could be persuaded that this is an objective genitive or I suppose you could make a less strong case that this is a "genitive of the end desired" (mentioned in 1349).

I guess the partitive supports your nuance - that the asker is asking for a part of something, but I guess I'm not that nuanced in my readings. I have no objection if you are, though.

Final thought - this is koine greek, so who knows what kinds of rules the author was breaking?

[Levin]

So we are the chosen generation, saved for the last, for this dispensation?

Also, children who die young or the mentally handicapped just needed a physical body to complete their mortal mission b/c they were so righteous in the preexistence?

Those of us who struggle with the misery surrounding us sure must have been mediocre in the preexistence: otherwise, we would be the ones suffering for the puzzlement of others.

[ERCougar]

si that supposed to be fuinny?

yes....hiularious

[Solon]

Also worth noting: the Latin Vulgate translation

Now you're slumming.

I think σοφίας could also be a feminine accusative plural.

[All-American]

Final thought - this is koine greek, so who knows what kinds of rules the author was breaking?

Touche.

[JohnnyLingo]

Didn't we used to have a forum were people could go to discuss Greek and translation and all that? Literaire Histoires or something? Or was that CG?

[creekster]

I think σοφίας could also be a feminine accusative plural.

That sounds like a polygamist's nightmare.

[ERCougar]

Touche.

Yeah, no kidding. BURN!

Or am I know the classicist's version of KL's golf tournament moron?

[All-American]

Now you're slumming.

I think σοφίας could also be a feminine accusative plural.

Like I said, I'm not consulting the Vulgate as an authoritative source. I'm looking at it from a historiographical perspective.

[Solon]

That sounds like a polygamist's nightmare.

I just laughed out loud in the Paterno reading room. Dirty look from the old lady at the next table.

thanks for that.

(PS - you, creekster, are now a classics geek. I'll FedEx your bow-tie and pretentious airs ASAP).

[All-American]

Didn't we used to have a forum were people could go to discuss Greek and translation and all that? Literaire Histoires or something? Or was that CG?

Yeah, sorry to spoil a perfectly good pissing match with our unsophisticated squabbling.

[JohnnyLingo]

Yeah, sorry to spoil a perfectly good pissing match with our unsophisticated squabbling.

Look, I'm just saying that thread hijacks are annoying enough, but when only three people on the entire board can follow the discussion, maybe it needs to be moved somewhere else.

[All-American]

I think σοφίας could also be a feminine accusative plural.

In form, perhaps, but in function? I don't know how that would fit in this particular sentence.

[Babs]

I have to say that some of the dialog here is rather puerile, IMO, and hard to get through. I did jnot read it all closely. It is very possible that my idea has already been presented. If so, feel free to ridicule.

Why does the story represent an "intervention" by God into man's affairs? If our goal is to align our will with God's, to do what He would do, to seek spiritual power in a way that allows us to act as God would have us act, and believe as God would have us believe, then perhaps making ourselves available to promptings is all that is required. Perhaps God sends promptings to everyone, all the time. Perhaps only those persons (both in and out of the LDS church) who are listening get the message. Having received it and acted on it lives may be changed and disasters averted, but it is not because of the capricious intervention of God, per se, but because of the fulfilled desire to seek his will and direction, which He makes available to everyone.

cf. Matthew 11:15; 13:14-15