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Luke 23:24

Footnote:

89

Valley of Decision

The phrase ἐπέκρινε γενέσθαι τὸ αἴτημα αὐτῶν in its straight, unadulterated translation means "he decided to become their demand." This construction clearly portrays the subject's decision to undergo a transformation, becoming what the petition represents, i.e., a change of state in relation to the petition itself. However, many traditional translations of this passage, such as

"decided that their demand should be granted," 

"gave sentence that it should be as they required,"

"decided to have their demand carried out,"

or "sentenced their demand to be done,"

require significant grammatical alterations that depart from the original Greek.

To render these idiomatic translations, several grammatical changes must be made:

  1. The aorist middle infinitive γενέσθαι ("to become") must be reinterpreted as an active construction, which it is not. This necessitates a shift from the middle voice (which implies a self-directed or reflective action) to an active one, such as ἐκρίθη ("was decided") or ἐξελέγη ("was chosen"), which would imply an external action or decision regarding the petition.

  2. The noun αἴτημα ("petition") would need to be altered to a term that indicates an object of a legal decision or demand, such as αἴτημα ἐκπληρωθῆναι ("a petition to be fulfilled"), introducing an entirely new verbal form (like ἐκπληρόω "to fulfill") that does not appear in the original.

  3. The phrase "to be done" or "granted," as seen in these retranslations, introduces verbs or passive constructions that are simply absent in the Greek, thus violating the syntactic structure of the original sentence.

In sum, these reworkings demand not only a semantic shift but also a substantial restructuring of the original grammar, transforming it into a form that aligns with conventional legal or procedural language rather than staying true to the original metaphorical and philosophical sense of γενέσθαι ("to become").

Does this process not reflect a profound distortion of the author's intended meaning, reducing the original depiction of a decision to undergo a transformation into a more conventional and legalistic interpretation of judgment?