Re: Questions about AORIST PASSIVE

Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Tue, 12 Nov 1996 22:36:56 -0600

At 10:35 PM -0600 11/12/96, Lee R. Martin wrote:
>>
>> > (3) NGEPQN (Aorist passive of EGEIRW). How should it be translated in
>> >the following passage in Matt 28:6?
>>
>> I heard George Caird when he cited this as an example of being "not a true
>> passive." Carl would say that it is the natural use of the non-thematic
>> aorist in QH I think. I would translate it "for he has been raised
>> (culminative) as he said."
>>
>> > OUK ESTIV WDE, NGERQN GAR KAQWS EIPEN
>> >
>> > Would a proper translation be: "He is not here, for he was raised
>>even
>> >as he said."? (My understanding of Aorist Passive). The NASB translation
>> >is: "He is not here, for he has risen just as he said".
>
>
>It seems that the Aorist Passive of EGEIRW is often used intransitively
>"arose." Thus, the NASB would be correct. The passive voice generally
>includes this intransitive possibility, e.g. "the heavens OPENED," etc.
>Therefore, the use of NGERQN should not be contrasted with ANISTAMAI. I
>believe they mean the same thing.

Well, perhaps in objective terms they may amount to the same thing, in that
Jesus "was dead and is alive again." It is also true that these Aorist
Passives do in fact derive historically from the intransitive athematic
verbs of the type I like to call "third aorist" (EFANHN, EGNWN, EBHN,
etc.); it is also true that several so-called deponent verbs that regularly
have middle-voice forms in the present tense go into the -QH- passive forms
in the aorist, and so are called "passive deponents." EGEIRW, however, does
not appear to be such a deponent verb, and we have active forms: e.g. Mt
10:9 NEKROUS EGEIRETE ("raise up the dead"--in the Missionary Discourse)
and passive usage of the MP forms: e.g. Mt 11:3 NEKROI EGEIRONTAI ("the
dead are raised up"--Jesus' reply to the emissaries of John the Baptist).
With regard to the resurrection of Jesus, Paul on more than one occasion
uses the active voice of the verb and clearly understands the raising of
Jesus as God's act: e.g. Rom 4:24 TOIS PISTEUOUSIN EPI TON EGEIRANTA IHSOUN
EK NEKRWN; Rom 8:11 EI ... TO PNEUMA TOU EGEIRANTOS TON IHSOUN EK NEKRWN
OIKEI EN hUMIN; 1 Cor 6:14 hO QEOS KAI TON KURION HGEIREN KAI hHMAS
EKSEGEREI.

I have no quarrel with the essential sense of the NASB translation here,
but I do think there's a difference of perspective between EGEIRW and
ANISTAMAI, and I think the former verb is really transitive, the latter
intransitive.

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/