[Lexicog] Re: When Semantics Doesn't Matter

[Fritz Goerling]

Scott,

 

There is a passage (John 2:4) where in the Greek text Jesus says to his
mother literally:

"What to you and to me, woman?" which sounds even more disrespectful, even
rude

in a literal translation.

Translators usually struggle with that form of address and with the
expression. However,

"woman" was a polite address to one's mother, and the simplest equivalent in
languages is 

usually "my mother." The expression "What to you and me?", which can be
rendered as 

"You must not tell me what to do", translates a Semitism. "That is none of
your business" would

sound rude in my ears as a translation. Translators usually make an effort
to translate that

expression in a respectful but firm manner, like "leave things to me, I will
settle them in my own way." 

Here in John 2:4 at the wedding at Cana, Jesus denies the authority of his
mother 

over him to reveal his doxa (glory, power). And he adds "my time has not
come." But then

he deals with the situation in his own way by changing water into wine, and
thus revealing his doxa.

 

Fritz Goerling

 


But I've always had a question about one expression Jesus used 
speaking to his mother, when on the cross he said to her, "Mother, 
what is there in me and you." (Or "What do we have in common?") I've 
always heard that this was an Aramaic idiom, but I've never heard a 
background explanation. In the English translation, because there 
seems to be no equivalent, it sounds rather disrespectful. Yet, 
knowing how idioms (in the set-phrasal sense) are non-literal, I 
assume there is some interesting root (or softer connotation) than 
what the English affords. Is there anyone with knowledge of the 
origin of that expression? 

Scott N.




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