Wonderful, marvellous, beautiful...

[christophershelt]

Fellow readers of Textkit--
I am working on an exercise which appears to be a paraphrasing of a New Testament text--so, don't go looking through your concordances, it won't be there. I am not a matriculating student taking a course for credit, just an individual learner who is curious. But, I have this sentence where the adjective for wonderful is used three times, first, as an adjective for wonderful, amazing, events or things, then for wonderful, amazing words; and lastly--also used as an adjective I THINK (though it seems it would be better stated as an adverb). But, let me show you the sentence.

α?τὸς ἔλεγoν ὑμῖν, ὅτι τῷ λέγειν μόνον θαυμαστὰ ο? γενήσεσθε θαυμαστοὶ,


εἰ μὴ θαυμαστὰ ??γάσεσθε.



My rendering is, "He was telling us himself, that you do not become a wonderful //person?// by saying wonderful things only, if you do not work //in a wonderful manner?//"

But I am not sure how thaumasta--neuter plural--is rendered in the last clause. Any ideas? I thank you--as always--in advance for your help and assistance.

Chris.

[annis]

But I am not sure how thaumasta--neuter plural--is rendered in the last clause.

I would say, "unless you work wonders."

[IreneY]

look, this is one of the tricky translation

Thavmastos etc mean both wonderful and to be admired

So, it's more like ...that you will not become wonderful/admired just by talking in a wonderful/admitrable way if you don't work wondefully/admirably.

Now ε?γάζεσθαι here has also a more general meaning. It has more the meaning of acting, than working per se.

Hope that makes sense

[ximo]

My translation would be:

"I was telling myself to you that you won't be admirable only because you pronounce wonderful/admirable words, but if you make wonderful acts/things". To be admired one has to make wonderful acts, and not only say wonderful things/words.

thaumasta is an adjective in all the cases, but in the neuter plural it is substantivated and the translation would be "wonderful/admirable things". If you like, you can translate it sometimes as an adverb, but it's only your translation, it is clearly an adjective.

[chad]

hi, i agree with irene above... if θαυμαστά was substantivised as will and ximo suggest, i.e. if it's an external accusative to the verb, it would take an article. there are some examples where an adjective or ppl without an article can function as a substantive, but these are the exception rather than the rule... unlikely in a beginners exercise

θαυμαστά is naturally read i think as an internal acc to the verb, i.e. as an adverb. this also agrees with LSJ on θαυμαστός, which cites the specific usage of the neut pl as an adverb:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/pt ... 3D%2347932

maybe the author was trying to give the sense "work wonders", but that's not what the greek says on a first reading i think

[IreneY]

well, it is true that grammatically/syntactically speaking, both translations are correct. In such cases I personally take the simpler route (plus I like the meaning better) but this is one of the cases that have scholars argue for ages.

[Paul]

I side with Will and ximo on this. The last occurrence of θαυμαστά is a substantivized adjective. I translate:

He was saying to you, that in only speaking wonders you will not become wonderful, unless you do wonders.

Anarthrous substantivized adjectives, even in the neuter, are not uncommon in the NT.

I might buy Chad's internal accusative argument but for the fact that the NT does use ἔ?γον with ??γάζομαι.

Cordially,

Paul

[chad]

hi Paul, yes I was wondering after I posted if it might be different in NT greek. question answered, and thanks also for the info, that's interesting. is it also common for ppls without articles to be substantives in NT? cheers, chad.

[IreneY]

I think we've analyzed the first phrase as much as possible (ergazomai after all takes an anarthrous substantivized adjective very often so let's go with this translation)

What do you mean by ppl? As in?

[chad]

oh sorry, i meant "participle". i was wondering, curiosity only (i don't know NT at all) if in NT a participle without an article can commonly function as a substantive, and if so, whether it has the same sense as article + participle, or whether it generally has an "general/indefinite" sense, the way e.g. participles without articles functioning as substantives in sophocles usually have an indefinite sense (Moorhouse, Syntax of Sophocles, page 258). it's interesting to learn about how these things changed after the (limited) period of greek i've concentrated on, thanks, chad.

[IreneY]

to tell you the truth I don't remember if it is common enough in NT but you should always bare in mind that, although the style of writing is sometimes superb, NT is not the best text of Koine you can find (there are mistakes, due often to translation from the Aramaic language, or to the fact that Greek was not eveyone's mother language -kind like my English)