If you mean this your own message now, and my response, certainly. I should
correct what I said there publicly previously about ELEGCW. I'll send it on
directly to the list.
>
>At 8:11 PM -0400 7/12/97, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
>>I would emend (or amend) one item in yesterday's submission: I there gave
>>"put to the proof" for the sense of ELEGCW, whereas I would agree with you
>>that its primary sense in Eph 5:13 must be "rebuke." I was following the
>>classical and particularly Platonic usage of ELEGCW which is "put to the
>>test to determine whether someone or something is what it/he claims to
>>be/is purported to be." In the intervening centuries the negative side of
>>that has come to dominance: "show to be false; prove to be wrong"--and so
>>that is the sense that should be given it in Eph 5:13.
>
>What about Luke 3:19?
>
> hO DE hHRWDHS hO TETRAARXHS, ELEGXOMENOS hUP' AUTOU PERI
> hHRWDIADOS THS GUNAIKOS TOU ADELFOU AUTOU ...
>
>I can only suppose that the difference is that this ELEGXOS was not
>efficacious; it was not done by the Light, but merely externally by
>the Baptist. It's sort of the difference between the external and
>the internal call of the gospel, I guess.
Personally, I wouldn't make the assumption that you and probably others
would make, that Luke's usage reflects the same idea of ELEGCOS by the FWS.
I won't say that it DOESN'T, simply that I'd rather consider the context of
each textual corpus, at least provisionally, independently. Canonical
criticism is another area, and not one that really seems appropriate to
B-Greek.
>Perhaps there is a parallel between the activity of the Light here
>and that of the Paraclete in John 16:8ff? Also, in James 2:9, the
>law is ascribed a convicting function in a manner identical to that
>of the Light here.
I think the function of the Paraclete in John 16:8ff. DOES belong in this
context. I'm less sure about James 2:9, but we have agreed that there is
parallelism between the FWS-ELEGCOS conception in Eph 5:14 and Jn 3:19-21,
so perhaps the parallelism might extend further between the two works.
Offhand, however, I'd be leery of making the simple identification of Law
with Light for James, without ruling out a relationship.
>>At this point I am also less than totally confident (so why don't I say I'm
>>unsure?), that is: I am unsure that FANEROUTAI and FANEROUMENON ought
>>necessarily in this instance be viewed as middle/reflexive rather than
>>passive. If I've understood Jim, on the other hand, I rather think he's
>>come around to seeing them as middle. If I've got that right, it's very
>>ironic, isn't it, Jim?
>
>You are absolutely right. I feel like we are dancing! (You're quite
>light on your feet.;-)
I know this is no Socratic dialogue (although I'd like to think that
B-Greek discussions at their best emulate the distinctive quality of the
Platonic dialogue: the earnest commitment to discovery of the truth coupled
with unfailing civility of discourse as well as recurrent brief interludes
of subtle humor), but it's strangely like the Protagoras of Plato wherein
there's genuine dialogue between Socrates and Protagoras, the dialogue ends
in APORIA, and Socrates and Protagoras have each reversed the positions
that they originally held regarding the teachability of virtue.
>Is it at all possible for ELEGXOMENOS to be middle? Admittedly, it
>seems unlikely. I could only find a single case of middle verb +
>hUPO + ablative, APWLONTO hUPO TOU OLEQREUTROU, in 1 Cor. 10:10. I
>really don't understand how APWLONTO functions in that context. In
>Numbers 14:26-35 the Lord indicates that the people of Israel will
>die and in Numbers 16:44-48 the Destroying Angel causes the death
>of 14,700 people. How is Paul using the middle voice there?
This is an interesting and somewhat tricky question. I really do NOT think
ELEGCOMENOS is middle here, although I wouldn't want to be dogmatic about
it. The case of 1 Cor 10:10 we have a wonderful demonstration of what I (at
least) conceive to be the original transitional construction wherein the
passive arose historically out of the middle. APWLONTO really means "they
met their doom" or "they met destruction" or "they had their undoing"--it
really is MIDDLE. When we add hUPO + ablatival genitive, we have a
clarification of the personal agent involved in the action: "They met
destruction at the hands of the destroyer." I would classify this
morphologically as a middle/reflexive, yet I would certainly admit that
functionally there is no difference between this and a passive. I think
that it was constructions like this that gave rise to the regular
formulation of our morphological passives of the generally accepted class
(presents, imperfects, perfects in -MAI, -SAI, -TAI KTL. aorists in -QHN,
-QHS, -QH KTL, and futures in QHSOMAI, QHSHi, QHSETAI KTL. (I won't even
approach the question whether Paul sees hO OLEQREUTHS as a figurative
expression for a monotheistic God who is, as Isaiah 45 puts it, "creator of
both weal and woe.") And that's enough praeteritio for today (sufficient to
the day is the praeteritio thereof).
Regards, c
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(704) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/