Why is this Greek word ignored in verses and not translated? (Strong's G302)

[Sozo1517]

Strong's word G302: an

I was wondering if anybody who is an expert in Greek might be able to answer my question in the title. I am not a Greek expert.

I know that the Lexicons say that it denotes "uncertainity, wish, possibility" especially when combined with the subjunctive mood. Other than that it says that it is "untranslatable" having no English equivalent. I have no idea what they mean by that.

It is used 166 times in the NT and seems like it would have serious impact on the meaning of some verses but the translators ignore it all the time.

Why?

Thank you in advance for responding!

 

[fredoheaven]

Would it be better if you could give at least a verse or two. Thanks

 

[7seasrekeyed]

Strong's word G302: an

I was wondering if anybody who is an expert in Greek might be able to answer my question in the title. I am not a Greek expert.

I know that the Lexicons say that it denotes "uncertainity, wish, possibility" especially when combined with the subjunctive mood. Other than that it says that it is "untranslatable" having no English equivalent. I have no idea what they mean by that.

It is used 166 times in the NT and seems like it would have serious impact on the meaning of some verses but the translators ignore it all the time.

Why?

Thank you in advance for responding!

so it doesn't have the English equivalent

ἄν, a particle indicating that something can or could occur on certain conditions, or by the combination of certain fortuitous causes. In Latin it has no equivalent; nor do the English haply, perchance, German wohl (wol), etwa, exactly and everywhere correspond to it. The use of this particle in the N. T., illustrated by copious examples from Greek writers, is shown by Winers Grammar, § 42; [cf. Buttmann, 216ff (186ff). Its use in classic Greek is fully exhibited (by Prof. Goodwin) in Liddell and Scott, under the word].

I guess it seems that the word suggest or indicates that something can or might occur UNDER or ON certain conditions as it states above

a direct word for word translation is not necessarily indicative of the meaning or intention of the original

English can be woefully short at times with regards to deeper meaning

perhaps read the source of the above from the Greek lexicon which goes deeper than just what a word means

 

[TheDivineWatermark]

I can't say I really know the answer to your question[/s] (I'm not a Greek expert either ), but when I looked at Galatians 1:10 (for example), at BibleHub, it shows this (notice what words are in the "pop-up" when you hover the cursor over the word in question):

https://biblehub.com/text/galatians/1-10.htm "an" [G302, but hover over the "an" word and see the "pop-up" there]

 

[Sozo1517]

Anybody else have any ideas why translators don't translate the word in so many verses? Just trying to understand why they do that. If it has a meaning you think it would be important to include it, right?

 

[TheDivineWatermark]

When I looked at a different site (similar to BibleHub's layout), the verse I looked up (same, Gal1:10) showed the only "untranslated" words in that verse as being the ones that BibleHub showed whole phrases for (and so it just showed the repeated Strongs # and word there), but it did have a word for "an" ('I should'), lol

 

[Kavik]

It's a grammatical 'particle' which are difficult to translate regardless of the language. An good example from a non-Indo-European language would be the Chinese particle 'ma'. There's no way to really translate it. It simply means that what I just said is a question; 'ma' is a question particle. Slavic languages have something very similar 'czy' (chih) in Polish is a question indicator, if you have to translate it, it's something like "whether", but it's usually left untranslated.

This particle in Greek is used with certain verb tenses (the subjunctive, for example - expresses wish/desire). There's really no way to translate it on its own; typically it's 'included' by the way the verb is rendered in the English.

So, in a sense it is translated, but not as a separate word/entity; it usually becomes part of the verb.

As 7seasrekeyed points out, English can be very lacking at times when it comes to expressing certain grammatical features found in other languages. One can usually get a very good translation going from language 'X' to English (or language 'Y'), but even a great translation may not adequately convey the nuances from one language to another when it comes to some grammar.

 

[reneweddaybyday]

From HELPS Word-studies:

302 án – a conditional particle expressing possibility, based on a preexisting condition (stipulation, prerequisite). This adds an important theoretical (hypothetical) sense to a statement which narrows down the sense of that statement.​

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302 (an) "indicates what can (could) occur – but only on certain conditions, or by the combination of certain fortuitous causes" (J. Thayer). Only the context determines how 302 (án) "limits" ("conditions") the statement by the possibility (condition) involved. Accordingly, 302 (án) is often called the "untranslatableparticle." However, it always influences ("conditions") its sentence and is key to properly understanding the verse (passage) in which it occurs.​

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[Though 302 (án) is not easily "translatable," it always conveysimportant meaning. (The KJV sometimes translates an as "perchance," "haply.")​

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302 (an) is used about 300 times in the NT, introducing statements that have conditional or hypothetical meaning.]​

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