Re: PDF author metadata

[David Kastrup]

J Martin Rushton <address@hidden> writes:

> On 10/07/16 19:48, David Kastrup wrote:
>> J Martin Rushton <address@hidden> writes:
>>> 
>>> That rather depends upon the translation of the Bible used.  The
>>> KJV was given a polish from Genesis to Revelation to make it
>>> read beautifully (one of my ancestors was involved).  Some later
>>> versions were written to be more in keeping with common speech
>>> and to be used for private study.  Compare John Iv1 in the KJV:
>>> 
>>> In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
>>> Word was God.
>>> 
>>> with The Basic English Bible:
>>> 
>>> From the first he was the Word, and the Word was in relation with
>>> God and was God.
>> 
>> Sorry, but I find the former a better translation of
>> 
>> ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ
>> λόγος.
>> 
>> even when it reverses the order of God and Word in the last part (I
>> can see the rationale for the reversal because the categoric use of
>> "God" is hard to bring across in English with unchanged word order
>> but don't consider it really helpful).

[...]

> Personally I find the KJV as clear as any modern translation and far
> more beautiful.  As to accuracy I leave that to people like yourself
> who can read Greek or Hebrew. (Do I understand correctly that the last
> phrase would be "and God was the Word"?)

Yes, that's verbatim.  The New Testament is written in Koiné Greek and
has no real predecessor (there is a scholarly translation of the Old
Testament into Greek, the Septuagint, but it is in an older dialect of
Greek and tries preserving relations to Hebrew idioms so the Evangelia
really start linguistically from scratch).  So "θεός" is not really
established as a proper name yet (and there is nothing like
capitalization to lean on for that), and John with his completely unique
introduction starts off by tieing God rather into a principle than a
tribal God personality.  So the last part really has connotations of
"and divine is the word", using "God" somewhat categorically.

This ambiguity is ephemeral: it resynchronizes with other sources later
on.  But the start of John is quite on its own tracks.

Uh.  This is a bit off-topic I fear.

-- 
David Kastrup