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Mistake in the Esperanto Bible

de Alkanadi, 10 de diciembre de 2015

Aportes: 29

Idioma: English

Alkanadi (Mostrar perfil) 10 de diciembre de 2015 07:44:44

How come the definite article is not used when describing Dio? Shouldn't it be la Dio? Does this mean "a god" and implies that other gods exist?

1:1 En la komenco estis la Vorto, kaj la Vorto estis kun Dio, kaj la Vorto estis Dio.

http://sacred-texts.com/bib/wb/esp/joh.htm

Kirilo81 (Mostrar perfil) 10 de diciembre de 2015 08:29:24

Dio en the abrahamitic religions is a personal name (as there are no other gods), which of course goes without article.

opalo (Mostrar perfil) 10 de diciembre de 2015 09:34:52

The Hebrew noun here is actually a plural: Elohim, or in Esperanto Dioj. The usual explanation is that this is a "plural of excellence", as the associated verbs mostly take the singular, but some suspicion exists! It is conventional in European languages to use "God" as a proper noun, and Zamenhof does the same. However, later on you will find la Sinjoro, la Eternulo etc.

The Old Testament accepts the existence of other gods, it just thinks that they are weaker and mortal and didn't create the world.

Altebrilas (Mostrar perfil) 10 de diciembre de 2015 12:44:19

Eternal question in religions: who has the right to draw the line between what is to be taken literally and what should be interpreted? Maybe Zamenhof was one of them.

richardhall (Mostrar perfil) 10 de diciembre de 2015 14:10:33

Kirilo81:Dio en the abrahamitic religions is a personal name (as there are no other gods), which of course goes without article.
The Esperanto text here echoes the Greek of the New Testament, which omits the definite article before God. (A point on which the Jehovah's Winesses base their entire Christology) So there's no mistake in the Esperanto as a translation of the Greek. The Greek of the New Testament is full of stuff that would be considered mistakes in classical Greek because it is written in the rough lingua franka of the age, not the refined language of the scholar.

Miland (Mostrar perfil) 10 de diciembre de 2015 14:25:47

The Esperanto bible uses the capital following the common Western convention, so that Dio means God, not god or "a god". That makes the Esperanto consistent with the usual Christian tradition.

If I understand correctly, though, in the Greek, the absence of the definite article could make the word adjectival, so that Moffatt has "the Logos was divine" and the NEB/REB has "what God was, the Word was." Perhaps we could have la Vorto estis Dia.

richardhall (Mostrar perfil) 10 de diciembre de 2015 14:26:14

opalo:The Hebrew noun here is actually a plural: Elohim, or in Esperanto Dioj. The usual explanation is that this is a "plural of excellence", as the associated verbs mostly take the singular, but some suspicion exists! It is conventional in European languages to use "God" as a proper noun, and Zamenhof does the same. However, later on you will find la Sinjoro, la Eternulo etc.
This quote comes from the New Testament, the Gospel of John, so it was written in Greek, not in Hebrew:
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος, καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος.

Zamenhof only translated the Hebrew Bible into Esperanto - the New Testament was done by Christian Esperantists

opalo:The Old Testament accepts the existence of other gods, it just thinks that they are weaker and mortal and didn't create the world.
That's true of some parts of the Hebrew Bible: it's a big collection of books, written over many centuries in lots of different contexts. It isn't (or shouldn't be) surprising that it offers a range of perspectives. I think we can say that by the time of the exile, the religion of Israel was fully monotheistic.

erinja (Mostrar perfil) 10 de diciembre de 2015 15:22:01

opalo:The Hebrew noun here is actually a plural: Elohim, or in Esperanto Dioj. The usual explanation is that this is a "plural of excellence", as the associated verbs mostly take the singular, but some suspicion exists!
It's not a totally ridiculous example, considering that such a plural exists in English (the royal "we", for example), and also plurals that are really singulars - a pair of trousers is really just one item.

devilyoudont (Mostrar perfil) 10 de diciembre de 2015 18:47:20

richardhall:That's true of some parts of the Hebrew Bible: it's a big collection of books, written over many centuries in lots of different contexts. It isn't (or shouldn't be) surprising that it offers a range of perspectives. I think we can say that by the time of the exile, the religion of Israel was fully monotheistic.
I have heard a theory that the experience of the exile created a monotheistic religion out of a henotheistic one. At the very least, I believe there is evidence of worship of Asherah as Consort to Yahweh up to the exile. It is interesting to think of at least ridulo.gif

Vestitor (Mostrar perfil) 10 de diciembre de 2015 19:17:12

erinja:
opalo:The Hebrew noun here is actually a plural: Elohim, or in Esperanto Dioj. The usual explanation is that this is a "plural of excellence", as the associated verbs mostly take the singular, but some suspicion exists!
It's not a totally ridiculous example, considering that such a plural exists in English (the royal "we", for example), and also plurals that are really singulars - a pair of trousers is really just one item.
Plurale tantum. They not really singulars though. A pair of glasses (for the eyes) really are two lenses, the frame that joins them is a mere convenience. The same can be said for trousers or scissors, which are two units with a join.

When you consider other languages, say Dutch for my ease, where trousers, scissors and glasses are all singular (broek, schaar, bril) it may seem that English is the exception, but French 'ciseaux' and Spanish 'pantalones' show that it isn't.

I've strayed from the point I think.

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