Hi!

I am having doubts about a literal translation of the following verse:
καὶ ἔπλασεν ὁ θεὸς ἔτι ἐκ τῆς γῆς πάντα τὰ θηρία τοῦ ἀγροῦ καὶ πάντα τὰ πετεινὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ ἤγαγεν αὐτὰ πρὸς τὸν Αδαμ ἰδεῖν τί καλέσει αὐτά καὶ πᾶν ὃ ἐὰν ἐκάλεσεν αὐτὸ Αδαμ ψυχὴν ζῶσαν τοῦτο ὄνομα αὐτοῦ

I translated this as: "And God molded (formed), still, from earth (dust), all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky, and brought them to Adam, to see what he will call them. And each [one of these], whatever Adam called it, - living soul -, that is his name.

Most of the translators have "And every living soul, whatever [..]". But the thing is that ψυχὴν is a feminine, and πᾶν is a neuter, so they don't agree. Am I right that ψυχὴν ζῶσαν is actually an aposition? Is my translation literal or am I mistaken? :)

Thank you kindly,
Marian

Hi Marian,

I think that "pan" maybe refers to name ("pan onoma"); however, your question would still remain, since we have the final "autou" (touto onoma autou) - the text should be "touto onoma autes" i.e. tes zoses psyches. Septuagint is full of such paradoxes, since it incorporates jewish forms. I would follow in this case the usual translation that you also mention.

The usual translation meaning my version or the one with "every living soul" ? However, "pan" relates to "theria" and "peteina", it agrees in gender with these, so I thought it related to them ("each (beast or bird), whatever Adam called it (a neuter), that was it's (neuter) name"). This seems to be a better translation than the usual one, gramatically, I think ?