I am not a huge proponent of the ideology that says one must know Greek and Hebrew to really understand the Bible, though of course, we must have those who do know it. Anyway, I will be preaching on Luke 7:31-35 which culminates in the fairly well known saying by Jesus,
Wisdom is vindicated by all her children.
I don’t always do a much work in the original text but I thought I would take a quick look and saw the relatively simple construction of this phrase.
καὶ ἐδικαιώθη ἡ σοφία ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν τέκνων αὐτῆς
and / passive verb ‘be justified,released’ / wisdom / from, by / all her children
Another simple and direct translation could be,
Wisdom is freed from all her children
This strikes me as offering an altogether different sense given so much of the preceding context speaks about various ‘genealogical lines’, namely that of a mother and son, John and disciples, John and Jesus, John and those of the Kingdom of God.
It also seems altogether plausible that both translation could be put forward as opposed to having to choose.
Any thoughts? We’ll see what I come up with for Sunday.