Guess who is also ‘full of Grace’?

I read an article on Luke 1:28 the other day, and I would like to address a commom, but very stubborn error that most protestants are quick to accept without giving it much thought.

The article was originally posted here, and the author intended to make a case against an alleged ‘mistranslation’ or ‘misinterpretation’ Catholics accept regarding the Angel’s greeting to the Virgin Mary in Luke 1:28.      

In order to make my point clear, I will quote the  author’s own words on two other biblical passages: (John 1:14) & (Acts 6:8):        

“The first citation (John 1:14) refers to Jesus who IS obviously full of grace. Jesus is God in flesh, the crucified and risen Lord, who cleanses us from our sins. In the second citation (Acts 6:8) it is Stephen who IS full of grace”. Matt Slick        

In analyzing the Greek original of John 1:14, Acts 6:8 & Luke 1:28, we will notice that the root word  χάριτος or charitos do appear in all of them;  either as a noun or as a conjugated verb.      

The translation of this Greek word  charitos is grace. This is how John 1:14 is translated, for instance, in the King James Bible and other protestant versions.     

The ‘root’ or ‘base’ word for χάριτος (charitos) is χάρις (charis*).  In Luke 1:14, however, we have χάριτος conjugated as a verb κεχαριτωμένη  (kecharitomene) whereas  in John 1:14 it appears as a noun.  (*Charis is the root for Charisma in English).  

Anyhow, the important point here is that  the original meaning of χάριτος or charitos  is GRACE, and all its ‘derivative’ still refer to this original meaning.  An analogy with English would be the conjugation, for instance, of the noun glory into words such as glorious, gloriousness, glorified, glorying, etc… 

Now,  let us imagine that a person  is described as ‘Glorious’.  Keeping in mind the meaning of the ‘root’  glory, we could  ultimately understand that a glorious person is some-one whose ‘glouriousness’ is appearent or distingued to all, thus  ‘full of glory’ wouldn’t be far off the intended description either.  We could not, however, from the same phrase conclude that  a   ‘glorious’  individual  can mean  higly ‘appreciated’, simply because the ‘root’ word ‘glory’ does not allow such conclusion. I am afraid, that’s exactly what happened with the protestant translation of Luke 1:28, where from  the root charitos or grace, we get  to ‘highly favoured’.   

Χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη, ὁ Κύριος μετὰ σοῦ (Lk1:28)   

“It is permissible, on Greek grammatical and linguistic grounds, to paraphrase keCHARITOmene as completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace.” (Blass and DeBrunner, Greek Grammar of the New Testament).  

Please note that the author of the article clearly accepts the translation ‘full of Grace’ in John 1:14 and even in Acts 6:8 , but not for Luke 1:28. Is there a reason for this?   

  

  

The following are the Greek Bibles I used for my research:      

ΠΡΑΞΕΙΣ 6:8 Greek NT: Greek Orthodox Church 
ΠΡΑΞΕΙΣ 6:8 Greek NT: Stephanus Textus Receptus (1550, with accents)  
ΠΡΑΞΕΙΣ6:8 Greek NT: Westcott/Hort with Diacritics