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Re: Observations on Ancient Greek Voice (LONG!)

Rod wrote:

>

>Somewhere I got it in my head that what I recognize in your
description (at

>least in part) was true in classical, but that the function of the

>middle/passive forms was in process of change by koine times. Spec.,
that

>the reflexive and/or self-interest nuance of the classical middle was

>nearly gone <bold>in the hellenistic/koine Greek of the NT</bold>. The
result is that

>middle forms are very little different in meaning from active forms;
the

>passive, as you indicate, being marked in the context (hUPO, etc.)

>

>I cast about briefly to see where I might have picked up this concept,
but

>only note somewhat related ideas in Moule (24, who also refers to
Brugmann

>and Moulton) and Mounce (224-5).


Rod's formulation above stimulated me to write the following--though I
recognize that his formulation is mor e carefully done than I imply in
what follows.


I am writing to protest one little linguistic habit that seems to show
up often in dicussions on b-greek: the simplicist identification of the
Greek of the NT as [THE] Koine.


I have problems with this for two reasons. (1) There is immense variety
in the Greek of different writers in the NT. Compare 2 Peter and Mark,
or John and Hebrews. Yet they are all writers of Koine. Yet I sometimes
(2) There are many other writers who write Koine Greek: Strabo,
Epictetus, Musonius Rufus, Dio of kPrusa, to name only four from the
centuries just before and after Jesus of Nazareth. And one can add in
the thousands of documents in the non-literary papayri. 


In the light of that I wonder whether one ought not more circumspectly
avoid such global generalizations as Rod makes in the last sentence of
the first paragraph above. Rrod and I might differ, for examaple, about
whether the middle form HUPOTETAGMENA in Heb 2:8 is a true middle in
form and sense. In 2 Pet 2:22 I would interpret LOUSAMENH as a true
middle, as I would the QERMAINOMENOS in Mark 14:54. I would have less
rouble if Rod had written that in the NT the rrequency of true middle
usage of middle forms seems to be declining. But I would like to see
one examine, let us say, two books of Strabo to see if the same is true
there. That is, is the non-use of middle a mark, not of the Koine in
general, but of the level of sophistication in Greek proficiency,
marking off the writers of the NT as not members of the upper elite. [I
think that the very fact that they write puts them somehow or other
into a class above the lowest.]


Peace,



Edgar Krentz, Prof. of New Testament

Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago

1100 EAST 55TH STREET

CHICAGO, IL 60615

Tel: [773] 256-0752; (H) [773] 947-8105 


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