Our understanding of the Greek New Testament is based almost entirely on English translations, but how would our understanding of the Greek text change if we read it for what it is: as Greek? With The Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament, we can now get behind the words of the New Testament writers and discover the particular linguistic tasks that inform translation and interpretation.
Matthew 9:24 | he said, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but asleep.” And they began making fun of him.
Matthew 10:3 | Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;
Mark 3:18 | and Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot,
John 14:5 | Thomas said, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
John 20:24 | Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
Commentary
This set of detailed commentaries provides valuable exegetical, historical, cultural, and linguistic information on the original text. Over the years this series has been instrumental in shedding light on the Scriptures so that translators all over the world could complete the important task of putting God’s Word into the many languages spoken in the world today.
John 11:10 Evidently the people of Jesus’ day believed that it was necessary for a person to “have light in himself” in order for him to see. Accordingly the two parts of this verse supplement each other. A person stumbles at night not only because of the lack of external light, but also because he has no light.
He has no light can be misleading, since it may suggest that “he has no torch.” It is important to understand the passage as referring to an internal source of light or capacity to see in the darkness.
John 11:11Jesus said this and then added is literally “he said these things, and after this he says to them.”
Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I will go and wake him up may have more than one meaning, as Jesus’ words often do in the Gospel of John. Both in Greek and in Hebrew “to fall asleep” may be used as a euphemism for “to die,” but the disciples fail to see this second meaning. The verb wake him up (exhupnizō) is the normal verb for “to wake someone from sleep”; it is not one of the two verbs (egeiro and anistēmi) used in the New Testament of raising people from death.
Though the readers of the Gospel will understand from the following verse what Jesus means, the disciples do not at this time comprehend the true significance of Jesus’ words. Because of the response of the disciples, it is necessary to translate has fallen asleep and wake him up in their first and primary meanings. If one goes beyond the primary meanings, the response of the disciples becomes almost meaningless. It is thought by some that by the time John’s Gospel was written the word friend had become a technical term for “Christian believer” (see Luke 12:4; Acts 27:3; 3 John 1:15; and John 15:13–15). However, it should not be so rendered in translation.
John 11:12The disciples answered is literally “therefore the disciples said to him.” He will get well translates a verb which literally means “to be saved,” but it can be used with the meaning “to recover from sickness.” What the disciples had in mind was that if Lazarus was sleeping, the worst stage of his sickness had passed, and now he would gradually get better. But the situation was otherwise, as the next verse indicates.
John 11:13Jesus meant that Lazarus had died is literally “but Jesus had spoken concerning his death.” TEV translates the noun phrase “concerning his death” by a verb phrase and makes the reference to Lazarus explicit. JB translates “The phrase Jesus used referred to the death of Lazarus.” To translate Jesus meant that Lazarus had died, it may be necessary in some languages to introduce direct discourse, for example, “What Jesus was really trying to say was, ‘Lazarus has died’ ” or “What Jesus’ words really meant was, ‘Lazarus has died.’ ” In some languages it is possible to speak of “Lazarus’ death” and to translate “Jesus was really talking about Lazarus’ death.”
Mft, Phps. NEB, and TEV all translate John’s phrase natural sleep. In RSV this is rendered as “taking rest in sleep,” and in NAB “sleep in the sense of slumber.” The Greek phrase that John uses is unusual, but its nearest meaning in English is natural sleep.
The contrast between what Jesus meant and what the disciples thought he meant must be indicated in some languages by an adversative conjunction, such as “but,” or “on the other hand.” The final clause may then be translated “but the disciples thought he was talking about just sleeping” or, in the form of direct discourse, “but his disciples thought, ‘He is just talking about sleep.’ ” or “… He is just saying that Lazarus is sleeping.”
John 11:14Plainly is the same adverb used in 7:4. Though in other passages it may have the meaning of “in public” or “openly,” it obviously has the meaning of plainly in the present verse (Elsewhere in John’s Gospel this adverb is used in 7:4, 13, 26; 10:24; 11:14, 54; 16:25, 29; 18:20.) In some languages “openly” may be best translated “without hiding anything” or “without covering up the words,” while in others it is best to say “Jesus told them straight” or “Jesus told them so that they could understand well.”
John 11:15 TEV and most other modern translations restructure this verse radically. It reads literally “and I am glad because of you, in order that you might believe, because I was not there. But let us go to him.” In its restructuring, NAB is close to TEV, but it retains the adverb “there,” which TEV renders with him.
So that you will believe is translated “that you may learn to believe” by Gdsp and Phps, and “that you may come to believe” by NAB. These renderings represent an attempt to carry through the force of the aorist subjunctive, which in the present context may have the meaning of “begin to believe.” That is, this verse is written as if 2:11 had not been included in the Gospel. Evidently, John is not so much concerned to show the development of the disciples’ faith as to indicate that this miracle was a means of initiating faith in their lives. For this reason the rendering of NEB, “it will be for your good and for the good of your faith,” appears not to carry through the force of the Greek aorist subjunctive.
In Greek there is no expressed object of the verb will believe, though it is obvious that Jesus is the intended object. Gdsp renders this verb “believe in me,” and GeCL is similar: “in this way you will learn to trust me.”
In some languages serious problems are involved in the first sentence of this verse. For your sake cannot be syntactically combined immediately with I am glad, but it is meaningfully associated with the entire expression which follows. Similarly the purpose, so you will believe, is not dependent solely on I was not with him. The belief of the disciples is dependent upon an implied miracle which is going to happen because of the fact that Jesus was not with Lazarus. In some languages the most appropriate way to combine these various concepts is to translate “but I am glad that I was not with him. Because of this you will learn to trust me. All this is for your benefit.”
Let us go to him may be rendered in some languages “We must now go to him.”
John 11:16 The name Thomas is derived from the Hebrew word te˒oma, meaning “twin.” The word Twin translates the Greek word “Didymus,” which has the same meaning. Though there is some doubt whether Thomas, in its Hebrew or Aramaic form, was ever used as a proper name, Didymus evidently had wide use as such in Greek circles. Two other times in John’s Gospel (20:24; 21:2) Thomas is described as “the one called the Twin.” Elsewhere in the New Testament Thomas is mentioned only in lists of the apostles (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; and Acts 1:13). Besides the passages already mentioned, Thomas appears also in John’s Gospel in 14:5 and 20:24–29.
Thomas (called the Twin) may be translated in some languages as “Thomas, whose nickname was Twin” or “Thomas, also called Twin.” However, in some languages it is important to distinguish between the older and younger twin—that is, according to the order of their birth.
There is no way on the basis of the Greek text to make this distinction, but in some languages one must choose one term or the other. The word translated fellow disciples (so most other modern translations) is found only here in the New Testament. His fellow disciples may be translated “the rest of the disciples” or “those who were also disciples with him.”
Let us all go along with the Teacher, so that we may die with him is literally “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (RSV). The problem is of a literal rendering, in which the participants are not specifically marked, is that a serious ambiguity may result. That is, the phrase with him could possibly be taken as a reference to Lazarus, who in verse 15 is referred to by with him and to him. Here TEV makes it explicit that the disciples are intending to accompany Jesus so that they may die with him. TEV refers to Jesus by the title Teacher in this verse because this title is the one by which the disciples address him in verse 8.
However, since they address him as Lord in verse 12, it is also possible in translating to introduce “Lord” here instead of Teacher. As in other contexts, a first person plural admonition may be translated “We should all go along with the Teacher” or “… with our Teacher.” This verse introduces for the first time in John’s Gospel the theme that the destiny of the disciples must be the same as that of their Lord, a theme further developed in the farewell discourses of Chapters 15–17.
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