Thee and Thou-ing
Jengie Jon
Shipmate
in Kerygmania
No, not God.
This is the interchange between Jesus and Pilate. I read the Passion narrative from St John's Gospel today in the Geneva Bible which uses the and thou to distinguish second person singular from second person plural. What immediately struck me was Pilate and Jesus both used the second person singular for each other. I checked back and it is from the Greek and also in Luke's Gospel where the same scene is recorded. While this is technically correct, in many cultures you would only use it with someone who you were familiar with (this includes modern French and Korean). Any of the idea of what the cultural use of the second person singular was in Koine Greek?
Jengie
This is the interchange between Jesus and Pilate. I read the Passion narrative from St John's Gospel today in the Geneva Bible which uses the and thou to distinguish second person singular from second person plural. What immediately struck me was Pilate and Jesus both used the second person singular for each other. I checked back and it is from the Greek and also in Luke's Gospel where the same scene is recorded. While this is technically correct, in many cultures you would only use it with someone who you were familiar with (this includes modern French and Korean). Any of the idea of what the cultural use of the second person singular was in Koine Greek?
Jengie
Comments
This is correct.
The use of the second-person plural to address a superior figure is known as the "majestic plural". It is not uncommon in the Old Testament, but does not appear at all in the New Testament, which is reflected in the C16/17 translations.
This has had some odd consequences. The RSV ended up using "thee"/etc. only for God, which was a weird choice, as it was not at all reflective of the Greek and essentially created a brand-new majestic singular. Meanwhile the Quakers, who refused to use the majestic plural at all, found themselves addressing everyone as "thou" in the name of equality, while ignoring the fact that the rest of the world had started using "you", making their stand for equality redundant.
Gotta love English.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc80G6Yzu04
Thanks, Basilica and Enoch, that is precisely the information I wanted. I do not think I want to take it further but others feel free to take this thread how you want.
Jengie
Yes, Koine Greek was the administrative language of all of the Eastern Roman Provinces until the reign of Diocletian, c. 300 years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth.
Broadly, yes. Diocletian made Latin the administrative language of all of the empire, but that didn't last very long.
The modern translations say 'you have', which does not make it clear that Jesus was talking specifically to the rich young ruler.
Does anyone know how different modern languages that do have distinctions between formal and informal second person pronouns translate "you" in different places in the Bible? (Like Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, etc.?) What about languages like Japanese that have much more elaborate distinctions in verb forms, not just pronouns, depending on who one is speaking to?
How do people speak to God, to Jesus, and how do God and Jesus speak to them? What about with kings, priests, Pharisees, scribes, Pilate, tax collectors, soldiers, etc, and in encounters between people of different social classes, different ethnicities, and encounters with outcastes? Or between parents and children? What about in the Epistles, the Prophets, the Psalms, the Wisdom Books? Are pronouns and formal/informal methods of address used differently in the Old Testament vs the New, or at different points in Biblical history?
We just pray and let the Holy Spirit sort it out.
I think the reason why Koine Greek faded away is because Latin eventually became the lingua franca of the whole empire. Many parts of the empire would not have known Koine Greek.
The Eastern half, which carried on after 476 AD, continued to use Latin for a time for official purposes. Most of Justinian's Code, for example, used Latin, but that was in part because it was collecting together writings that were largely in Latin. But for most other purposes, the Eastern Empire used Greek. And just as knowledge of Greek died out in the west, so knowledge of Latin died out in the east. And in spite of the Muslim attacks from the C7 onwards, it remained streets ahead of the backward west until the crusaders wrecked it by sacking Constantinople in 1204.
Obviously, Greek changed over the centuries, just English has done, but modern Greek is descended from koine Greek, just as modern English is descended from the English Chaucer wrote in.
James Keifer has it that Greek was the language of the educated classes in Rome until the pontificate of Gregory the Great, 590 - 604, when it suddenly stopped. There appears no reason for that.
Jengie