Hobbit in Ancient Greek, parag 4

Ἔστιν μίκρα καὶ οὐδεμία τέχνη μαγεῖα ἐν αὐτοις, ἀλλά μόνον ἑπιτυχη τέχνη εἰοῦσα ἀφανίζεσθαι ἡσυχῆ καὶ ταχέως ὅταν οἱ μεγαλοι μώροι ὡς σὺ καὶ ἐγώ παραπταίουσιν φωνοῦντες φωνήν ὡς ἐλέφαντες ἧς δύνανται ἀκούειν ὅββιτοι ἀπό μίλιον. τείνουσιν εἰς παχύτην κοιλίας. ἐνδύονται δὲ ἐν ἱματισμῷ λαμπρῷ (μάλιστα χλωρῷ καὶ ξανθῷ) καὶ οὐκ ὑποδοῦσιν σανδάλια, ὅτι οἱ πόδες αὐτῶν εἰσιν δερματίνοι ὑποκάτω καὶ δασεῖς θερμοί μέλανες ἄνω, ὡς ἡ θρίξ ἔνουλη ἡ ἐπὶ κεφαλαὶ αὐτῶν. ἔχουσιν δάκτυλους μακρους συνετούς μέλανας καὶ πρόσωπα εὐηθικά. γελῶσιν δὲ γέλωτα ἰσχυρά γλυκέα, μάλιστα μετὰ δεῖπνον, ὅ ἐσθίουσιν δὶς τῆς ἡμέρας ἐάν δύνωνται λαβεῖν. Νῦν γινώσκετε ἱκανόν προέρχεσθαι ἐν τούτῳ τῷ μύθευματι.

[There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off. They are inclined to be at in the stomach; they dress in bright colours (chiefly green and yellow); wear no shoes, because their feet grow natural leathery soles and thick warm brown hair like the stuff on their heads (which iscurly); have long clever brown fingers, good-natured faces, and laugh deep fruity laughs (especially after dinner, which they have twice a day when they can get it). Now you know enough to go on with.]

Again, suggestions from experts in Hellenistic Greek are welcome!

To see all paragraphs translated so far, see here. 

The Hobbit in Ancient Greek, parags 2-3

Οὖτος ὁ ὅββιτος ἦν πλούσιος σφόδρα, ἐπίκλησις δὲ αὐτῷ Βάγινος. οἱ Βάγινοι κατῴκισαν ἐγγὺς Τοῦ Ὄρους ἀπὸ παλαιοῦ, οἱ δὲ ἄνθρωποι ἡγοῦνται αὐτούς εἶναι σφόδρα εὔκοσμοι, ὅτι οὐ μόνον οἱ πλεῖστων ἦσαν πλούσιοι ἀλλὰ καὶ ὅτι οὐ μή ἔχωσιν τολμήματα μηδὲ ποιῶσιν τι ἀπροσδόκητον.  Γινώσκεις ὃ Βάγινος εἷς ἀποκριθήσει τῳ τινι ἐρωτήματι μὴ ταράσσων ἐρωτᾶν αὐτόν. Τοῦτο τὸ μύθευμα περὶ Βάγινα ἕνα ὅς ἔσχεν τολμήμα καὶ εὑρέν ἑαυτὸν λέγοντα καὶ ποιοῦντα τινα ἀπροσδόκητα πάντως. σχεδόν ἀπολώλεκεν τὴν τιμὴν τῶν γειτόνων αὐτοῦ, ἀλλα ἐκέρδησεν - ὄψῃ οὖν εἴτε ἐκέρδησεν τι εἰς τέλος.

[This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours’ respect, but he gained--well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.]

Ἡ μήτηρ τοῦ ὅββιτου τούτου... Τί ἔστιν ὅββιτος? οἶμαι σήμερον δεῖ ἐξηγεῖσθαι περὶ ὅββιτων ὅτι σπάνιοι γεγόνασιν καὶ αἰσχυντηλοί τῶν Μεγάλων τῶν Ἄνθρωπων, ὡς καλοῦσιν ἡμᾶς.  Εἴσιν (ἤ ἦσαν) μίκροι ἄνθρωποι, ὡς ἡμισυ τὸ ὕψος ἡμῶν καὶ μικρότεροι τῶν Νᾶνων τῶν γενειῶν. Οἱ Ὅββιτοι ἀγένειοι.

[The mother of our particular hobbit... … what is a hobbit? I suppose hobbits need some description nowadays, since they have become rare and shy of the Big People, as they call us. They are (or were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded Dwarves. Hobbits have no beards.]

Translation notes:
I settled on Βάγινος for Bilbo's surname. One γ had to be removed for pronunciation purposes, and I decided to give it a standard Greek 2nd declension ending, since it will be used often in the translation. 

• βάγινος = Baggins
• Νᾶνος = dwarf

The Hobbit in Αncient Greek (paragraph 1)

ὁ ὅββιτος
ἤ
ἐκεῖ και ἐνθάδε πάλιν
ὑπὸ Ἰ.Ρ.Ρ. Τόλκιενου

Α΄ Δοχή Ἀπροσδόκητη

Ἐν τρώγλῃ ἐν τῃ γῃ κατῴκισεν ὅββιτος. οὐ τρώγλη ταλαίπωρη καὶ ῥυπαρὰ καὶ ψεκάδα πεπληρώμενη δὲ μέρεσιν σκώληκων καὶ ὀσμῃ ἰλύῃ, οὐδε τρώγλη ξήρα καὶ ἀμμώδη κενή χώρις τινος ἐν ᾧ καθήσθαι ἤ ὃ ἐσθίειν. ἦν γὰρ ὅββιτοτρώγλη, καὶ τούτο ἔστιν τρυφόν. 

[In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.]

ἥς ἦν ἡ θύρα κύκλη τελείως ὥς θυρίδα πλοῖου, γραπτὴ χλωρῷ, πυρηνίδι χαλκοῦ στίλβοντος χανθού ἐν τῷ μεσῷ τῷ ἀκριβεῖ. ἡ θύρα ἤγαγεν ἐπ’ αὐλῆς σωληνοειδεώς ὡς ὑπόνομος; ὑπόνομος σφόδρα τρυφόν χώρις καπνοῦ, κοιλόσταθμον, ὑποκέραμον, συν τάπησιν και καθέδραις εὐξεσταίς και πάσσαλοις πολλοὶς σφόδρα εἰς πέτασους και ἱμάτια - ὁ γάρ ὅββιτος ἐφίλει ξένους. διήκε ὁ ὑπόνομος μακροτέραν καὶ μακροτέραν ἑλικτός εὐθύς σχεδὸν ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἀκριβωμένως εἰς τὴν κλιτύν τοῦ ὄρους – Τὸ Ὄρος, ὡς αὐτὸ ἐκάλεσαν πάντες οἱ κατοικοῦντες ἐπί πολλά στάδια – καὶ θυρίδες μικραί πολλαὶ ἦσαν καὶ ἐν δεξιᾷ καὶ ἐν ἀριστερᾷ. οὐκ ἔδει ἀναβαίνειν τὸν ὅββιτον ἀναβαθμούς: κοιμητήρια, βαλανεῖα, ἀποθήκαι, ἀρτοθήκαι (πολλαί αὐτών), ἱματιοθήκαι (ταμιεῖα ἔσχεν δεδομένα πάντως τοῖς ἱματίοις), ὀπτάνια, δειπνητήρια; πάντα ἐπί τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἐπίπεδου, και ἐπί τῆς αὐτῆς αὐλῆς. αἱ βελτίσται ταμιεῖαι ἦσαν ἐν ἀριστερᾷ (εἰσερχόμενος), ὃτι ἦσαν αἱ μόναι ταμιεῖαι μετά θυρίδων. αἱ θυρίδες ἐβαθυτομηθήσαν καὶ ἐθεασάντο ἐπι τὸν κῆπον αὐτοῦ καὶ τούς λειμῶνας ὄντας ἐπικλινάς πέραν εἰς τὸν ποταμόν.

[It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats - the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill - The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it - and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond,
sloping down to the river.]

So I'm not sure quite why I started doing this... but I began to translate The Hobbit into ancient Greek. I think I was actively avoiding grading a pile of papers, and (as Prof. Tolkien would say) a thought came to me unbidden. How would I say "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit" in Greek?

I am a professor of New Testament, so I have done my translation into Hellenistic Greek, sometimes called Koine Greek. My primary reading is in the New Testament and the Septuagint, which I am sure influences my style and grammar choices. I have quite likely included a few semitisms, and it's all but certain that I have made some blunders! Like other New Testament profs, I spend my time reading Greek, but I rarely try to write anything in Greek.

Greek experts, I'd love to get your feedback on the translation. I think I'll post a paragraph at a time.

Translation notes:

• ὅββιτος = Hobbit
• ὅββιτοτρώγλη = Hobbit-hole 
• You can see all the paragraphs translated so far here.

Did Jesus Have a Wife? A New Gnostic Fragment

According to an article in the Washington Post, an ancient manuscript claiming that Jesus had a wife has just been discovered. I’ll tackle this new discovery with some Q&A.
 
What is this new find?
Karen King, the Gnostic scholar who published the manuscript, has titled it the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife (see the scholarly article here). It is a very small fragment, only 12 partial lines, of an ancient Gnostic book. The fragment, written in Coptic, dates from the fourth century, but it is a copy of an older book, perhaps written in the late second century. According to the fragment, Jesus refers to “my wife.”
 
Is the manuscript genuine?
It’s too early to tell. When manuscripts are discovered, it usually takes some time of examination and scholarly vetting before forgeries are discovered. There are some concerns about Gospel of Jesus’ Wife’s unknown provenance and history of ownership, but the initial reports make it seem likely that this is a real fourth-century Gnostic document. That doesn’t mean that the document is true or has anything to do with Jesus!
 
How is this related to the so-called Gnostic gospels?
The Gnostics wrote a number of short collections of sayings that they attributed to Jesus: the Gospel of Philip, Gospel of Judas, Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and others. Technically, these are not really gospels, at least when compared with the canonical gospels. The four gospels in the New Testament are full biographies of Jesus, directly tied to eyewitness accounts, and written within 25 to 60 years of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Gnostic gospels, in contrast, are short collections of sayings, with little or no biographical material. They are written by people more than a century removed from Jesus, with no connection to the eyewitnesses. Generally, these works are easily identified because they try to make Jesus sound like a Gnostic. This newly discovered fragment has a few lines that sound like the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene.
 
What does the document say about Jesus’ wife?
Not much! Here is the entire text of the document:

1 ] “not [to] me. My mother gave to me li[fe…”
2 ] The disciples said to Jesus, “.[
3 ] deny. Mary is worthy of it
4 ]……” Jesus said to them, “My wife . .[ [
5 ]… she will be able to be my disciple . . [
6 ] Let wicked people swell up … [
7] As for me, I dwell with her in order to . [
8] an image [
1 ] my moth[er
2 ] three [

3 ] …[

4 ] forth which … [
 

The ellipses indicate unreadable material. As you can see, there is very little to work with. However, as King points out, it seems that “My wife” in line 4 refers to “Mary” in line 3, although we can’t be certain. Although Mary was a very common name, the prominent relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus in other Gnostic documents makes it seem likely that this is Mary Magdalene and not some other Mary.
 
So the Gnostics thought Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene?
Not so fast. Marriage, kissing, and the “bridal chamber” were metaphors in Gnosticism related to enlightenment and their initiation rituals. Some Gnostics thought that all actual sexual intercourse was evil. So the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife may be using Gnostic metaphor. You may recall from several years ago that the Gospel of Judas was so packed with opaque Gnostic metaphor that scholars are still debating whether it portrays Judas as a hero or a villain.
 
Then does this document tell us whether Jesus was married or not?
All it tells us (sort of) is what Gnostics thought. Since Gnostics weren’t around until the second century, and Gnostics are notorious for making up sayings of Jesus, this tells us absolutely nothing about the real Jesus. Karen King, the scholar who published the fragment, partially agrees with this evaluation. You can bet that this important fact will be overlooked or downplayed when you see it on the cover of news magazines or watch the forthcoming Smithsonian documentary.
 
Aside from this manuscript, how likely was it that Jesus was married?
There are three reasons that Jesus was probably not married. First, the New Testament never mentions a wife. Since the NT authors mention Jesus’ mother, father, four brothers, some sisters, an aunt, and some cousins, it is very unlikely that Jesus had a wife and no one mentioned it. Second, Jesus described a special calling of celibacy to allow a greater focus on the kingdom of heaven (Matt 19:10-12; cp. 1 Cor 7:7-9). This strongly implies that Jesus was celibate. Third, the church fathers, some of whom had access to reliable oral tradition about Jesus, believed that Jesus never married (Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Chrysostom, as King points out).
 
But wasn’t it the norm for Jewish men to get married?
Yes, it was strongly encouraged. In later Judaism (second century), it was almost a requirement. But there are significant examples of celibacy in Judaism, including Jeremiah, some Essenes, the female Therapeutae, possibly the prophet Bannus, and the second century sage Ben Azzai.
 
Does it really matter whether Jesus was married or not?
In one sense, it doesn’t matter. If the Gospels had told us that Jesus was married, it would not be disturbing, and we would consider it as part of his incarnation and genuine humanity. However, Jesus and Paul clearly thought that some people should fully devote themselves to kingdom service by abstaining from marriage. Jesus’ celibacy confirms what we already know about Jesus: that his entire life was completely and undistractedly devoted to advancing the Kingdom of God.

The picture: The front side of the newly discovered Gnostic fragment The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife (copyright Karen King).

This post can also be found at the Talbot blog, thegoodbookblog.

Revealed to Whom? (John 3:21)

I often get questions from students about the best translation of some verse. Usually, the difference is between "literal" translation (such as ESV or NASB) and "dynamic" translation (such as the NIV or NLT). These two types are also called "formal" (because they try, when possible, to follow the forms and word order of the original Greek or Hebrew sentences) and "functional" (because they try to preserve the function or meaning of a whole sentence). Another way that these two types of translations are sometimes characterized is "word-for-word" and "thought-for-thought." A good book that clearly and succinctly explores these two translation philosophies is How to Choose a Translation For All Its Worth, by Gordon Fee and Mark Strauss.

A recent question emailed to me about the translation of John 3:21 reveals the difference in approaches. The underlined phrase in each (below) is a translation of the underlined Greek verb.

Greek: ὁ δὲ ποιῶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἔρχεται πρὸς τὸ φῶς, ἵνα φανερωθῇ αὐτοῦ τὰ ἔργα ὅτι ἐν θεῷ ἐστιν εἰργασμένα.
My formal translation: But the one who does the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be revealed that they are worked in God.
ESV: But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
NLT: But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.

There are several differences between the translations, but the most important one is who the works are revealed to. The ESV (and other formal translations, like the NASB) leaves it unclear, but the first impression of most readers is that the works are revealed to God. The NLT (and some other functional translations like the CEV) specifies that the works are revealed to other people.

Part of the change that the NLT makes is converting the Greek passive "may be seen" into an active "so that others can see." It is common for functional translations to convert passive verbs to active for greater clarity. Nothing wrong with that - formal translations sometimes do the same to make more sense in English (Matt 5:7, for example). In this verse, converting the passive "may be seen" to an active verb requires specifying who it is revealed to. Should it be translated "so that God can see" or "so that others can see"? If the sentence was ambiguous in Greek, it would be best to leave it ambiguous in English, or maybe pick the most likely one and put the other choice in a footnote.

However, it turns out that this verse was not ambiguous to a native Greek speaker. The Greek verb for reveal in this verse is phaneroo (φανερόω). Elsewhere in John, and in general throughout the NT, phaneroo refers to revelation to humans, not to God (John 2:11, 7:4, 9:3, 17:6, 21:1). Knowing this, the translators of the NLT decided to make it clear in the translation that the the works are revealed to other people. 

While there are good reasons to have "literal" translations like the ESV, it is interesting that in this case, the NLT more clearly communicates the meaning of the sentence by being less "literal."

The picture: John 3:21, from the fourth-century manuscript Codex Sinaiticus. You can see that the scribe accidentally skipped most of verse 21, but the corrector added it into the margin.