# Všechno povstalo skrze něj



## Tagarela

Ahoj,

Recently I've found a translation of the Bible into contemporary Czech and I've decide to use it on my Czech studies. 
I have some doubts on this phrase(Jan 1,3):
*Všechno povstalo skrze něj
a bez něj nepovstalo nic, co je.*

a)The -e on skrze is only for pronunciation reasons? 
b)The case after skrz is acusative? I was thinking on instrumental, since it saounds to me as "everything was rise by/through him" as He was a mean, way of doing it. 
c)And for last "co je" is only for a kind of emphasis?

Děkuji vám pěkně =)

Nazdar.:

*Pardon for moderators if it sounds like multiple questions, but I guess that if I split it in several threads it would be worse =)


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## texpert

a - *skrze *is another variation of *skrz*, fully valid, slightly more literary 
b - yes acusative, no instrumental
c - I believe so


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## werrr

Tagarela said:


> c)And for last "co je" is only for a kind of emphasis?


I don’t think so.

“Co je” means “which exists”:

vše, co je = everything which exists, everything in the universe


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## winpoj

However, this "co je" seems redundant - leaving it out wouldn't change the meaning a bit in my view. So it can be claimed that it is there for emphasis - but probably already in the original text.

You might also want to take note of the fact, Tagarela, that this use of "povstat" is not common. We would now probably use "vzniknout".

"Povstat" is normally used to mean "start an uprising" or as a formal version of "vstát" (i.e. stand up).


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## Tagarela

Ahoj,

Thank you all for the answers.

As for the "co je", I asked if it's redundant, because comparing to my Portuguese edition of the Bible, it seems, as Winpoj said, something that doesn't necessarily change the meaning of the phrase. 

Nazdar.:


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## Fantomas.CZ

Hi, this is not a question of redundancy, but of the original text. See for yourself:

πάντα δι' αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, 
καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. ὃ γέγονεν  (Nestle-Aland 26). 

So that translation is fully compliant with the original text. The purpose of a biblical translation is not to remove redundancies, which are so typical for the hebrew way of writing poetry (which the beginning of John's Gospel indeed is).

BTW all the biblical translations (maybe save the Bible21, which claims to be the Bible for the 21st Century) are written in a slightly archaic language, which reflects that the text is some 2k years old... Therefore the expression "povstat" used as an equivalent of the greek γινομαι, which means happen, come to be...


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## kusurija

Ad c.:
_, co je is_ not redundant. Cf.: nejen vše, co *je*, *ale i* vše, co *není*... It exactly means, that he didn't create anything, what is e.g. only thought out (fantasies).


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## texpert

Oh what a fresh point of view. But how about things that *were* but *are not *anymore, did He create them too? The sentence does not attest to it though He have could created them all right and change his mind later


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## Fantomas.CZ

I didn't emphasize it, but I see I should have. The greek word γέγονεν, which is the Czech "co JE", is in perfect. That means what was, is and will be (I'm sorry, texpert  ). It can also mean what has happened, came to be and some hundred similar equivalents (see γιγνομαι in a classical Greek dictionary or γινομαι in Koiné dictionary). And because this kind of perfect Czech language lost a long time ago, the only way how to express it, is present imperfect.


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