Riverwind

Luke 19:30-34 30 "Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' tell him, 'The Lord needs it.'" 32 Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?" 34 They replied, "The Lord needs it."

Modern Bible translations confuse me here. Most translations I am familiar with use the bolded phrases above. However, this is not what the Greek seems to say. In fact, the Greek just confuses the issue that much more, at least to me. Perhaps someone of the others here who know Greek could help me out.

I would probably word the bolded passages as follows: "It's lord has need {of it}." and "...its lords asked them..."

This seems to change the meaning quite a bit. Was this a trick of some sort? If the colt's "lords" were the ones they spoke to, why would it not have struck them strangely that these people were "loosing" their colt for "its lord"?

Perhaps the answer is as simple as the other "lords" of the colt just knew that there was another "lord" of the colt...who knows... The Greek just seems confusing to me. Is there something about it that I am misunderstanding?

Whose ass were they grabbing anyway??

Riverwind

Sorry if the title is off-putting to some, but in spite of that, I really intended this to be a serious inquiry. Any comments from Greek Geeks?

spin

The autou is partitive and is the object of the need.


spin

Julian

I would translate it as:

Its lord has need.

or more risky but better and more correct, I think:

The lord himself has need

where 'autou' would be reflexive. 'chreian' is accusative and must be the object in the absence of a preposition so I am not sure how spin gets 'autou' to be the object, especially considering its genitive form.

I may be entirely mistaken here and would urge spin to explain further. And any others of the Greek knowledgable here.

Julian

Ben C Smith

The autou cannot modify Lord here, since the former is genitive, the latter nominative. And for a true reflexive (did something to himself) we would expect heautou, not autou.

Because exei xreian is an idiom that means has need of something, where the something is in the genitive.

I think spin is correct. On its own merits, especially given the word order, the autou could mean either his (referring to Lord, as in his lord) or of it (masculine, agreeing with pwlos, colt); but in the former case the expression exei xreian would be missing its usual genitive.

Sorry, Julian, I always seem to be disagreeing with your translations.

Nothing personal.

Ben.

Julian

Please explain why nominative cannot be the target of genitive.
Yes, that is because I don't write so good.

What I meant to say was that autou was for emphasis (the lord himself) where we in English would use a reflexive form. It reads well:

The lord himself has need (of it).

Ah, well..
I see, thanks. Idioms, ya gotta hate 'em...
That is a good thing in many ways. If I was correct I would have remained the same. By being wrong I had an opportunity to grow. I frequently grow when I comment on Greek.

Julian

RED DAVE

And the winner for Best Thread Title is ...

RED DAVE

Ben C Smith

I am not sure what you mean by target.

What I am saying is that, if the noun is in the nominative and the autos is in the genitive, then the translation he himself, an intensive, is unavailable. In such a case we would expect o kurios autos, with both words in the nominative. See Luke 24.15 for an example.

Ben.

Riverwind

This was in reference to something Julian said, but in addition to heautou, couldn't you also say "himself" using the nominative form, "autos"? In this case, I would have thought for Julian's reflexive translation, the Greek would have been "ho kurios autos..." (sorry..cross-posted that with your last post...I guess I have my answer to this.)

I was going to respond to Spin, but since you also address the point here, I'll just respond to this.

I certainly don't say you two are wrong. In fact, you are likely correct. However, I just wanted to make some observations. First, I believe (although I'd have to do some searching) that I've read "exei xreian" as a "standalone phrase/idiom" somewhere. Whether I am remembering correctly or not, could the object of this phrase not be implied..."of it"?

So, what I'm saying is that I understand where you and spin are coming from, and it makes sense, but is there really anything wrong with my translation..."Its lord has {a?} need"? After all, the very next verse, in referring to the colt says "its lords", having the same form...oi kurioi autou! And the translators translated this way...except I don't really understand the use of "owners/masters" over "lords" except for theological biases.

I guess I'm not sure what is "wrong" or improbable about my own translation.

I guess, to ask a more probing question, how would I determine methodologically which is right.

Riverwind

I aim to please! :-)