Re: Luke 3:21-22

Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Fri, 8 Nov 1996 11:13:58 -0600

At 4:17 AM -0600 11/8/96, evans@mail.gld.com wrote:
>List:
>
>In doing some routine sermon prep. I have run into a passage that
>for my limited Greek experience is like trying to unravel an Agatha
>Christie mystery!
>
>Here is the passage: (Hope the transliteration is correct for the
>list's format)
>
>Egeneto de en tw baptisqhnai hapanta ton laon kai Ihsou baptisqentos
>kai proseuchomenou anewchqhnai ton ouranon kai katabhnai to pnuema
>ton agion swmatikwn eidei ws peristeran ep auton, kai fwnhv ex
>ouranou genesqai, Su ei ho huios mou ho agaphtos, en soi eudokhsa.
>
>I have followed the lastest postings on the list concerning the
>genitive absolute construction, so I felt as though I had found that
>here with Ihsou baptisqentos kai proseuchomenou. However, I have
>been thrown for a loop by the following infinitives, particularly
>anewchqhnai and to a lesser extent by katabhnai. I assume that they
>serve the same basic function since they seem to be joined by the
>conjunction.
>
>The first articular infinitive with the preposition in this passage
>seems to mean something in the order of "he was in the act of
>baptizing the whole crowd..." But the force of the other two eludes
>me. If baptisqentos kai proseuchomenou are co-ordinate then it can
>not be that Jesus prayed in order to open the heavens, which is an
>absurd idea anyway. Clearly the infinitives anewchqhnai and
>katabhnai are co-ordinate and relate to the passage in the same way
>(I think).

There are other very serious and important questions here, but I want
rather quickly, if possible, to respond to the grammatical question at the
outset:

(1) Yes, IHSOU BAPTISQENTOS KAI PROSEUXOMENOU is indeed a genitive absolute;

(2) EN TWi BAPTISQHNAI hAPANTA TON LAON = hOTE EBAPTISQH hAPAS hO LAOS;

(3) The rest of the construction is acc. + inf. dependent upon the initial
genitive: EGENETO ... ANEWXQHNAI TON OURANON KAI KATABHNAI TO PNEUM TO
hAGION:
TON OURANON is subject of ANEWXQHNAI and TO PNEUMA TO hAGION is subject of
KATABHNAI; these two subject-predicate units function as subjects to the
initial EGENETO: "It happened, (namely) the heaven to get opened up and
the holy spirit to descend ..." This is not really an ordinary
construction in older Greek but it appears to be one that develops in the
LXX for translation of the Hebrew construction beginning with W'Y'HI +
subject and finite verb; since the clause with subject and finite verb were
understood to depend upon the initial W'Y'HI (usually translated in older
versions, "and it came to pass that ..."), the subject-verb pair tended to
go into the Greek subject-accusative + infinitive construction.

This is too brief to be very clear, but I hope it helps a little bit.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/