Re: Impv in Mk 5:34

Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Mon, 14 Jul 1997 17:37:04 -0400

At 6:52 AM -0400 7/14/97, Carlton Winbery wrote:
>
>I checked through some Greek Testaments I have and found that the following
>accent this as a perf. ind.
>1.Souter, Nov. Test. 1910
>2.Eberhard Nestle 1904
>3.Tischendorf 1877
>4.Westcott & Hort 1903
>5.A. Merk 1964 printing
>6.Hodges, Majority Text (which means that most of the Byz Minuscules that
>have accents probably have the perf ind. I have checked copies that I have
>of mss 33, 227, 1007, 1346 and they all have the accent for the perf ind.)
>7.British & For. Bib Soc. 1916
>8.Nestle's 21 ed. 1952 (My college NT)
>9.Textus Receptus (see note by Hodges)
>10. Modern Greek NT Bible Society of Athens hOTI IATREUQH APO THS MASTIGOS
>(The Aorist here would be translated into English "Because she had been
>healed from her malady." i.e. culminative aorist)
>11. Modern Greek NT from UBS 1967 hOTI EQERAPEUQHKE APO THS MASTIGOS (This
>is the alternative form in modern Greek for the perf. pass.)
>
>I have checked several Latin editions
>1.Merk, Latin "quia sanata esset a plaga" (The perfect in Latin)
>2.Beza Latin 1949 printing "sanatum esse exeo flagello" (Perf Inf.)
>3.Vulgate 1969 edition "sanata esset a plaga"
>4.Wordsworth White 1982 BFBS ditto
>5.Nestle's 1921 edutuib ditto
>
>To an extent I would agree with Edward that the N-A and UBS accentuation
>means nothing and also all the others that I have listed above. They are
>all secondary, along with the following which opt for the perf. pass.;
>1.Zerwick-Grosvenor,
>2.Pierre Guillemette (Gk. NT Analyzed),
>3.Rienecker & Rogers (Ling. Key),
>4.A. Schmoller (Handkonkordanz),
>5.Mounce, Analytical Lex, and
>6.Band I of Vollstaendige Konkordanz which gives the accented forms whereas
>the Computer Concordance does not and thus Band II of VK mistakenly gives
>the figure of IATAI (2) when it should give I)/TAI (1) and I)A=TAI (1). A
>paragraph in the introduction reads,
>Akzente wurden nur gesetzt, wenn Woerter mit gleichem Buckstabenbestand
>verschiedene morphologische Formen oder Wortarten bilden; Beispiel . . .
>DRI/NOUSIN und KRINOU=SIN. . . .
>7.Brooks & Winbery (Morphology of NT Gk) Appenix 1 [least & last]
>
>While these are all secondary, there must be a reason for the near
>unanimous verdict from these secondary sources. The only reason I can find
>is that the context of Mark 5:29 demands it. How would you translate the
>present middle in that verse? I can't come up with a translation that
>makes sense except the perf. It fits like a glove. Perhaps the best
>translation into a modern language I have seen is in Die Bibel, Die Gute
>Nachricht in heutigem Deutsch, ". . . und sie spuerte, dass sie ihre
>Plage los war." "and she sensed that she was free from her sickness."
>Clearly the writer is thinking of an existing result.

Carlton, what I would like to see is another instance of a perfect passive
form of the conjugation I)/AMAI in extant Greek texts of antiquity. I quite
agree that

>While these are all secondary, there must be a reason for the near
>unanimous verdict from these secondary sources. The only reason I can find
>is that the context of Mark 5:29 demands it. How would you translate the
>present middle in that verse?

I think, in fact, that everyone has taken this to mean what they think it
HAS to mean. The aorist passive for this verb, I)A=QHN, is attested and
could have been used here and would better suit the context. Nevertheless,
I really think that we OUGHT to view this form (unless we can find other
examples of an I)/AMAI perfect passive) as (a) a present passive (..."that
she is (was) being healed"), as (b) a present middle (... "that he is
healing [her]), or (c) as a solecism (of the sort that those who
believe--as I used to believe myself--that Mark wrote bad Greek because he
didn't know it very well; my present view is that Mark did not write bad
Greek but that he incorporated bad Greek that he found in a source into his
own redaction without improving the syntax or morphology).

Quite frankly, I don't think that the perfect passive is what would be
expected here; more appropriate, in my opinion, would be either an aorist
passive, I)A=QH, or a pluperfect passive, theoretically I)/ATO--IF we had
reason to believe that the verb really has a perfect passive stem.

I grant that I may be very wrong on this matter, but I still think that
someone way back there decided this issue on what he/she thought the
context demanded, and everyone else played "follow the leader." I'm still
hoping that somebody with access to the TLG "D" disk can find one or more
other unquestionable instances of a perfect passive stem of the root I)A-.

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/