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Talk:John 1-7 (Translated) (view source)
Revision as of 16:41, March 21, 2011
, 16:41, March 21, 2011→Issue with translation of John 4:53: Karajou, you are only right ''gramatically''...
:::There is no "about" here, as in "it happened ''about'' 1 pm". The original states it happened "at" such-and-such hour, not "about", not "around". [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 10:51, 19 March 2011 (EDT)
:::There is no "about" here, as in "it happened ''about'' 1 pm". The original states it happened "at" such-and-such hour, not "about", not "around". [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 10:51, 19 March 2011 (EDT)
::::The word here is "at", from the Greek ἐν ("en") meaning "a primary preposition denoting (fixed) position (in place, time or state), and (by implication) instrumentality (medially or constructively), that is, a relation of rest." In short, the phrase gives the sentence an exact time in which the incident took place. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 11:00, 19 March 2011 (EDT)
::::The word here is "at", from the Greek ἐν ("en") meaning "a primary preposition denoting (fixed) position (in place, time or state), and (by implication) instrumentality (medially or constructively), that is, a relation of rest." In short, the phrase gives the sentence an exact time in which the incident took place. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 11:00, 19 March 2011 (EDT)
:::::You may be spot on the meaning of ''ἐν'', but I'm afraid that you are still wrong:
:::::*The time of the sign in Capernaum is stated by the servants, in Cana by the nobleman - it isn't the Lord who states that there is an event which happened simulaneously in two different places.
:::::*So, the ''exact time'' could be only as accurate as their measurement. And how did the nobleman and his servants measure the time of the day? It was common to judge the time by the length and/or position of your shadow. But perhaps he had a sundial in view. Have you seen antic sundials? Usually, the scales indicate only the hours, very seldomn half hours.
:::::*Using a phrase like ''exact time'' - or even ''at 1 o'clock p.m.'' - is anachronistic, it infers an exactness of time measurement which wasn't existing in the first century. A similar anachronism is used by critics of the Bible when they claim that 1 Kings 7:23 (''And he made the Sea of cast bronze, ten cubits from one brim to the other; it was completely round. Its height was five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference.'') implies that [[pi]] equals 3. But Huram - a mortal - made the sea, and it is measured as exactly as possible, i.e., up to half a cubit. Equally, the hours of the day a given as precisely as possible, at best up to a couple of minutes (only noon was sometimes measured more precisely...)
:::::*In John 11:9 we read: ''Jesus answered, "There are twelve hours in the day, right?"'' ([[John_8-14_(Translated)#Chapter 11]]). This is true - as the time of daylight was separated into twelve sections. The length of these hours varied by the time of the year and the longitude and latitude of the place, adding further complications when trying to get an ''exact'' point of time.
:::::I hope that these elaborations help you to see that even if you are correct ''grammatically'', you are wrong ''factually''! An antic's writer's statement ''it happened at the seventh hour'' means in our modern language ''it happened around 1 p.m.'' So, I'll change the translation to my version, again.
:::::But there is a little bit more to this, as this sign is used at [[Counterexamples to Relativity]]:
:::::*To be able to differ between a event which happened simultaneously in Cana and Capernaum (distance perhaps 90km) and a sign which happened at the speed of light, the time measurement had to be ''ridiculously'' accurate: up to .0004 seconds! Impossible to achieve for mere men at this time! Remember that Galileo sixteen centuries later still used his heartbeat to measure small periods of time.
:::::[[User:AugustO|AugustO]] 12:41, 21 March 2011 (EDT)