Translation of sōzomenois in Koine Greek. Present middle/passive participle.?

Question

In the KJV of 1Co 1:18, sōzomenois is rendered "are saved," but in most modern translations it is rendered "are being saved."

Sōzomenois is a present middle/passive participle. Does this mean it can be rightly translated both in the past tense and in the active (middle tense)? If so, how does one determine what the correct translation is (past or active)?

Can you explain how present middle/passive participles are to be translated and how one determines whether the word in question is present middle or passive?

What is your opinion about the sōzomenois?

Answer 1

According to "The Analytical Greek Lexicon of the New Testament", sōzomenois is dative plural masculine participle present passive.

So basically it's acting as a noun meaning "those who are saved". It's not past tense "were saved", it's present tense "are saved". The English "-ed" does not indicate past tense here at all; it expresses passive voice.

As for whether it should be rendered "those who are saved" "those who are being saved", that's a matter of interpretation. The Greek word simply doesn't tell you. Greek present tense, whether koine or modern (and I'd hazard a guess to say classical too), can mean "do" or "is doing" or anything in between.

The same point is can be said about the "apollymenois".

In any case, I doubt that that distinction is an issue here. The point is the distinction between the damned and the saved. Whether damnation or salvation is a state or a process is not at issue here. In any case, given that the text offers two choices, either damnation or salvation, then it wouldn't make sense to consider salvation a process, because those who "are being saved" would still be damned because they're not quite saved yet.

Answer 2

I still don't know Greek, but the difference in English between "are saved" and "are being saved" is one of aspect, not voice. Both are in the passive voice, "are saved" is simple present passive and "are being saved" is present progressive (aka continuous) passive. My understanding is that the present progressive passive is a relatively recent form in English, so if I had to guess, I'd say that it simply wasn't grammatically possible in the 1600's. (I seem to recall hearing it dates to about 1800, but I could be wrong.) Now that it is possible, it makes more sense to use "are being saved" because the salvation isn't complete until "we" are dead.

If I understand the "middle/passive voice" (and that's a fairly big if, since I've only heard of it from your two questions...), the other possible translation would be "we who are saving ourselves" which is definitely more Catholic- than Protestant-sounding, but still theologically questionable.

Answer 3

Do you have the original text? Your spelling is in latin and i m used to reading greek in greek ( for instance i can only assume that the participle is in dative judging from the -ois ending?) Also a whole sentence would be helpfull, even in latin if u dont have the greek letters. If u do, send it and i ll try to answer. I m greek and i have studied classical ancient greek for a while. Koine is much more simple to us then classical greek, even my grandma who only went to primary understands it because it's pretty close to todays language. In fact, i think that the loss of middle voice was one of the big changes of hellenistic koine (or in other words the deconstruction of classical greek due to it's geographical expanding).
At first look, i dont see how swzomenois could be active anyway.

PS. I agree with goddess of grammar although my english is far from perfect, i believe that are saved and are being saved are both passive. Btw goddess, middle is another voice (apart from active and passive) in ancient greek, that's propably why you haven't heard of it before.