Lesson 10b — Acts 1:12-14

It's Greek to Me        (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar)

Dr. Stephen Krashen, a retired professor from the University of Southern California, spent his career researching bilingual education and English as a second language (ESL) acquisition.  We are using some of his insights in this class.

In 2011 he addressed a group of ESL teachers with a short talk on how learning and reading a new language could delay the onset of dementia.  I thought as a little diversion from Luke's writing, you would enjoy watching this 5 minute video:

Dr. Stephen Krashen on Language & dementia.mp4

 

Bob's Comments → Things We Can Learn From These Verses

 

Translate

Now that you have your own interlinear rendering, and have a pretty good picture of the Greek for this verse from my lecture, it is time to start trying to come up with your own proper translation. 

Complete your first draft before looking at anybody else's translation.

 

Compare and Tweak

Now that you have roughed out your own proper translation, you may take a look at some comparison versions.  These are all pitched at the general level I want you to aim for:

For the sake of the learning experience, I want you to aim to get your proper translation into idiomatic, Canadian Standard English. 

Think about the anchor people of the CBC National News, not King James. 

WWCD (What would the CBC do?):  If the CBC National News would never use the wording of your proper translation, you need to go back to the drawing board to try again.

 

Practice Handwriting

This recent study from Johns Hopkins University:

https://www.sciencealert.com/handwriting-is-better-than-typing-when-learning-to-read-study-finds

...suggests that your language acquisition will come significantly faster, and be more thorough, if you write out the text of this lesson by hand onto a blank manuscript.  This is much better than just staring at Greek on your computer screen.

 

Make Your Manuscript

Download and print a .  Copy out the Greek of the verses on the lines, and just below it, your proper translation. 

Since this is not a word-for-word, interlinear rendering, but a proper translation, likely your translation will not line up exactly with the Greek above the line.  That is OK.  What you want is to be able to come back to this a year or two from now, look at it and be able to compare your proper translation with the Greek original, and see how they connect.

Here is what my own manuscript looks like as an

 

Sentence Diagramming

We see that Acts 1:18 is not a simple sentence.  Rather, it has additional clauses that are connected with a conjunction.  Conjunctions rather stand out from clauses, rather than being integral parts of them.  Let's map that out.

Upon closer inspection, we can see that there are TWO conjunctions, and following each is a regular verb (i.e. not a preposition).  The first ἐλάκησεν, is a 3rd person aorist active indicative singular, to burst open.  The second, following the second καὶ, is ἐξεχύθη, a 3rd person aorist passive indicative singular, to be poured out.

Since a clause always has one (and only one) main verb, we are dealing in two clauses here.  Take the second clause where the verb is to burst open.  We ask "Who or what burst open?" and the answer would be μέσος, his middle, or abdomen. 

So far, so good.  We still have a participle phrase at the beginning of the clause to deal with:  πρηνὴς γενόμενος, falling headfirst.

Back in lesson 12 we said one of the uses of the participle was:

A participle can be an adverb. It will still agree with the number and case of the noun that is the subject of the verb, but the participle is mostly there to modify the verb. Commonly, it will tell you WHEN the verb happened (as he was leaving, while they were speaking, etc.).

As an adverb, πρηνὴς γενόμενος answers the question of "When did his abdomen burst?"  It burst when he fell headfirst.  We may elect to not render that "when" mechanically, but it helps us understand the role of this phrase in the sentence.

Most commonly, πρηνὴς γενόμενος would be being headfirst. This is a little troublesome to render in idiomatic English (  ).  Let's see how some other translators handled this.

There is general agreement that, at least in this context, "falling" lies within the semantic range of γενόμενος.  Until I can come up with more data on my own, I am going to accept that as valid.

I am going to diagram that below the line, as it modifies the verb of the second clause.  I am going to use a vertical connecting line | where the modifier contains a participle or infinitive.  I shall use a slanted connecting line / where the modifier does not include a verbal of any sort.

Let's look at this through a couple of extra lenses.

Language is a good bit more complex than chemistry.  We can understand a sentence intuitively, even at our level, better than we can analyze it.

Still, it is a help to wrestle with the words, and try to sort out how they relate to each other, and what each word connects with.

We'll get started on the third clause of this verse next lesson.