I hope to do more research on the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the future. I will admit, for me to get “into” a topic, I either have to be interested in it and/or forced into studying something, and (1) I find JW-related topics, well, boring, to be honest and (2) I rarely have interactions with JWs where I live. To off-set this, I do hope to focus on issues I am interested in (e.g., Christology; linguistic issues). I hope to share some of the more interesting comments from works I will read on this blog (even if I do not will agree with it--just to share materials with readers of this blog).
The following is from the rare JW scholar (a retired
lecturer in Semitic languages from the University of Oslo) who attempted to
defend the rendition of αρπαγμος in Phil 2:6 as "seizure" thusly:
What, then, are the translation possibilities
for this verse? The sense in which harpagmos
is taken will greatly influence the translation. Almost all of the evidence
point to an active meaning which includes force, and all the English
translations on the Gramcord CD (NAB, ASV, Darby, NASB, YNG, NIV, NJB, NKJV,
RSV and TEV), except NRSV, which uses “exploit,” translate it with an active
meaning. But if this is correct we have to consider an important question asked
by R.P. Martin, “What exactly was it that our Lord refused to plunder?” Martin
answers, “There is no satisfactory answer to that question, which presses for a
reply if an active signification is given to the key-term” (Carmen Christi, p. 135). This means that
is harpagmos is understood in an
active sense, its complement (accusative predicate) cannot be a state which
already holds.
We can illustrate this by two sentences
expressing a permanent and a temporary state, respectively:
1) “He did not consider being as tall as his
father a seizure.”
2) “He did not consider being president that
year a seizure.”
If Paul wanted to convey that Jesus already
was equal to God, this would have been a permanent characteristic, and
Philippians 2:6 would be close to sentence 1); a stative accusative predicate
would in this case have been impossible. Sentence 2) is also strange because “a
seizure” is performed to obtain something which one does not have; “to be
president” would hardly collocate with “seizure” as would “to become president.”
The most natural way to understand the two
accusatives occurring with hēgeomai
from a syntactical point of view, if the active/passive nature of the clause is
not considered, is to take one as object and the other as its complement. But
to use this construction in an English translation to convey the thought that
Jesus was already equal to God, requires that harpagmos be taken in the passive (stative) sense of “booty,” or
something similar. This is Martin’s preferred view.
We therefore have two different ways in which
to translate this verse:
a) “[he] did not consider a snatching in
order to be [or, because] equal to God.”
b) “[he] did not regard it as booty [this]
being equal with God”; or “he did not regard being equal with God as something
to take advantage of.”
In favor of a) there is strong evidence for
the active meaning of harpagmos as “snatching.”
In favor of b) there is strong evidence for taking one accusative as object and
the other as complement where hēgeomai
occurs with a double accusative. The NT examples do, however, express states.
They conform with and bolster b) but they do not necessarily speak against a),
which is active and not stative. The examples from 3 Maccabees and one from
Plutarch about an absolute use of hēgeomai
with a double accusative establish the syntactic and syntactical information we
have are not decisive, and that the translator’s theology must play an
important role in the translation process.
What, though, does the context have to say?
IN particular, verse 9 seems to contain some important clues. Consider the verb
charizomai, which has the meaning “to
grant as an act of grace” (J. Loh and E. Nida, A Translators Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Philippians [Stuttgart:
United Bible Societies, 1977], p. 61). Also, we have the verb huperupsoō (“highly exalt”). In his
large grammar (Robertson, A Grammar of
the Greek New Testament, p. 445), Robertson shows that he understands the
verbs in a comparative sense, that Jesus received a higher position than he had
before he came to earth, but almost all commentators take it in the superlative
sense of the most high position. In any case, God is the subject. He puts Jesus
in the highest position next to himself, and kindly gave Jesus the exalted
name. It is the superior who gives his subjects something out of grace; it is
not given to a co-equal person. Thus, the element of grace in the verb charizomai clearly indicates that the
Father and the Son are not equal. Verses 10 and 11 also support this
conclusion: All must acknowledge that Jesus is Lord “to the glory of God the
Father” . . . the linguistic evidence is not decisive, so theology must play an
important role in the translators’ choice . . . (Rolf Furuli, The Role of Theology and Bias in Bible
Translation With a Special Look at the New World Translation of Jehovah’s
Witnesses [Huntington Beach, Calif.: Elihu Books, 1999], 273-75)
With respect
to 3 Maccabees and Plutarch (Aristides
2.4), for Furuli, they are important as (1) both texts use hēgeomai in an active sense and (2) both have accusatives which are
either double or function as double accusatives. Furuli renders the texts
thusly (p. 271):
3 Maccabees 3:15 “We [subject] considered [hēgeomai, aorist] to foster [infinitive
, accusative object] the inhabitants [accusative] of Coele-Syria [accusative]
and Phoenicia, to show kindness willingly to them [apposition].”
Plutarch, Aristeides 2.4: On the occasion of
Themistocles’ giving opinion [hēgeomai]
on a genera’s greatest virtue (namely his) understanding and anticipation of
the plans of enemies.
