Entrepalavras: Revista de Linguística do Departamento de Letras Vernáculas da Universidade Federal do Ceará (Jul 2016)

The alternation of the verbs agapao and phileo in translations to Latin and Neo-Latin languages of the Bible text John 21

  • Artur Viana NASCIMENTO

DOI
https://doi.org/10.22168/2237-6321.6.6.1.66-82
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6, no. 1
pp. 66 – 82

Abstract

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It is clear to see that a vast theoretical and analytical literature on the sacred texts of Christianity is produced nowadays in order to stimulate research in the field of biblical theology and to find the demands of a literary text well-known worldwide and considered as Divine Revelation by a considerable part of the world. Unfortunately, as we can be verified in the academy, there are still few the linguistic studies that cast its attention to investigate, in the sacred texts, aspects related to the science of language. Therefore influenced by such motives, this article aims to approach the problem of translation of three verses of the twenty first chapter and one of John’s Gospel, highlighting one pair of verbs (agapao and phileo) that, in Koine Greek, are structurally different, according to the meaning each one evokes, but Bibles of Romance languages in closer so those used in Brazil, either Catholic or Protestant publishers, the verbs difference is not checked, nor it is the particular meaning that, in the Greek language, each one has. In order to deal with this aspect, the theory of dynamic equivalence, proposed by Nida (1964), has been the way in which these verses has been analyzed in order to reach for a translation that is closer to the original meaning of the text under consideration.

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