>Now I await the other shoe.
TO MEN PRWTON hUPODHMA, W QEOFILE, PROSHNEGKA FOBERWS DH, ALL' hOMWS G'
ELPIZWN AUTO SWSEIN; IDOU DE TODE TO DEUTERON PALIN PROSFERW ETI MALLON
FOBOUMENOS, hOU EAN LUSHiS TON hIMANTA, OU KEKTHMAI OUDEN ALLO!
Everyone should understand that Carlton's other baptismal name, if known
only to his parents and myself, is "Theophilus". Actually I am in a tiny
minority of Luke-Acts interpreters that thinks "Theophilus" is not a
distinct historical individual but rather a generic term of endearment
addressed by the evangelist to every human reader. That idea may be very
wrong, but it makes me feel good, makes me think that Luke wrote for me in
particular, as well as for everyone else in particular.
>Carl Conrad wrote;
>>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 don't think that this would be the only form that only occurs once in
>Greek Literature and it is a correct form according to the morphology of
>alpha contract verbs.
I'll grant both points, but concede to them only a limited argumentative value;
(a) other things being equal, a HAPAX LEGOMENON had better stand pretty
strongly on its own feet; you argue that it does, that it's logical in its
place, while I would feel much more comfortable if I could see some other
extant instances of the perfect passive of this verb; (b) yes, it conforms
to the morphology of alpha contract verbs--BUT it is somewhat anomalous in
TWO ways: (1) the lengthening of the Iota in the initial vowel is not
signaled in the spelling of the Greek word, although it must be lengthened
(augment in place of reduplication) if this is in fact a perfect passive
(cf. ERWTATAI, HRWTHTAI); (2) the Alpha of the stem IA should lengthen and
the lengthened Alpha should become Eta, BUT that vocalic change from Alpha
to Eta is INHIBITED (in Attic, at least, although not in older Ionic) when
the Alpha is immediately preceded by Epsilon, Iota, or Rho (again, cf.
ERWTATAI, HRWTHTAI, whereas, if IATAI in Mk 5:29 is in fact a perfect
passive, then that pattern would be orthographically uncontrasting: present
I)A=TAI, perfect I)/ATAI). Which is to say: Yes, "it's the correct form
according to the morphology of alpha contract verbs," but in a curiously
anomalous fashion.
>>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"),
>
>But the imperfect form IATO is attested in other lit. and would have said
>this so much better, granted there is not much difference between the
>so-called "historic presents" usage and the use of the present for the
>imperfect. It does not happen much in Mark as I recall.
And HOW, pray tell, could I)A=TO as an imperfect, be distinguished
orthographically in the Uncial MSS from I)/ATO as a pluperfect; if we grant
(for the sake of argument) that there really is a perfect stem in IA- for
this verb? After all, just as there is no way to signal reduplication in
this stem except by lengthening the Iota, so there is also no way to add an
augment to a vocalic perfect stem in Iota--and for that matter, the KoinŽ
often enough does not augment pluperfects at all, although it MIGHT, if it
COULD, augment this trisyllabic form.
>>as (b) a present middle (... "that he is healing [her]),
>
>If that is the case, I would see it as intensive, "She knew in her body
>that he, himself, healed (historic) her from the malady."
That could be, I guess, although I've always thought that the historical
present was found primarily in independent narrative clauses rather than in
a subordinate hOTI clause.
>> 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).
>
>But it is pervasive, even in the authorial comments and connecting
>summaries (see esp. 8:14-21).
I don't quite understand this. Do you mean that BAD GREEK is pervasive in
Mark, even in his redaction? Frankly I think Mk 8:14-21 is pretty good
Greek. Seriously, what would you fault in it?
>>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.
>
>That makes the perfect in a couple of Latin translations more significant, I
>think.
Okay, let's look back over your list of authorities supporting I)/ATAI as
perfect passive:
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)
Of all of these I must say regretfully that error, like Adam's sin
(according to St. Paul), once emergent, has a way of being hUPEREKPERISSWS
prolific. It may, as you suspect, NOT be an error, but once accepted, it is
certainly likely to have been adopted by subsequent editors of the NT,
despite the fact that the earliest, i.e. the Uncial (I shall forever want
to write "Unical" when I think of this word!) MSS, are unaccented. And
although it has no value as proof that IATAI must be understood as a
present-tense form, Edward's allusion to the fate of poor Junia (Rom 16:7),
maligned in her gender through the ages, is a salutary parable pointing the
moral that 20,000,000 Frenchmen and centuries of copyists and interpreters
CAN BE WRONG. I will not say dogmatically that they ARE wrong in this
instance, but as the hymnast wrote, "Time makes ancient good uncouth."
>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)
Note that this is translated as an English pluperfect; that is appropriate
for an aorist when it points to an event prior to that signaled in the
clause upon which it is dependent. This is an interpretation, of course,
not a literal translation.
>11. Modern Greek NT from UBS 1967 hOTI EQERAPEUQHKE APO THS MASTIGOS (This
>is the alternative form in modern Greek for the perf. pass.)
Yes, this is indeed the modern Greek pf. passive; it demonstrates that the
translator believed that the form in the Greek text of Mk 5:29 was perfect
passive; it does not prove that he/she was right in so interpreting it.
>I have checked several Latin editions
>1.Merk, Latin "quia sanata esset a plaga" (The perfect in Latin)
In fact, the Latin verb here is PLUPERFECT subjunctive, which is correct
Latin for reference to an event prior to that signaled in its referent
clause.
>2.Beza Latin 1949 printing "sanatum esse exeo flagello" (Perf Inf.)
This is, in fact, better Latin, to follow a Latin verb of cognition, than
the other phrase, "sanata esset a plaga"--that is to say, it conforms more
closely to the Latin of Cicero and that best approved by Renaissance
writers of Latin.
>3.Vulgate 1969 edition "sanata esset a plaga"
>4.Wordsworth White 1982 BFBS ditto
>5.Nestle's 1921 edutuib ditto
If in fact this goes back to Jerome or even to what the apparatus refers to
as VETERES LATINI, I would still be inclined to think it's not a literal
conversion of a form IATAI actually understood as a perfect passive but
rather a rephrasing in grammatical Latin (vulgar Latin, that is--the
vernacular of the later imperial period) of what a present passive in Mk
5:29 was understood to MEAN.
In sum, I find the unanimity of this tradition impressive and interesting,
but I do not find in it compelling evidence that the form IATAI attested in
the early Uncials really is a perfect passive. Maybe I'm obtuse.
>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.
Yes, I like that version, but surely it is evident that this is a
paraphrase ("dynamic equivalence"?) rather than a "literal" translation
(and NO, I DON'T want to start another thread on how the Biblical text
OUGHT to be translated). And I agree with you that this German version
understands the Greek text to imply an existing result. Let me go one step
further than that even: I think that the text of Mk 5:29 IATAI, even when
interpreted as a PRESENT tense (a solecism?--that's a possibility I'm open
to here as a form in Mk's source) could be understood in terms of
instantaneous fruition (I might suggest a version: "She realized that a
cure was at hand." THAT's how I would translate it as a present middle.
>>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-.
>>
>Were the opinion not from divers places where there seems to be little
>chance of influence or from people who tended to think critically, I would
>share your suspicions. And there are a large number of Greek mss (albeit
>from a later period) that give this form as perfect, and that after all is
>the only evidence we have except what we suspect the writer would have
>written.
>
>Now I await the other shoe.
Et bien, voilˆ! This has been a fascinating (to me, at least) exercise in
"pure" grammatical analysis. The answer to Rod Decker's question about ISQI
hUGIHS, fortunately, does not depend on our problem's solution. If IATAI in
Mk 5:29 is in fact a present tense, it would be nice to have the correction
duly noted in the printed, accented text. If, on the other hand, the upshot
of our discussion of this problem is that it is a NON LIQUET--it's
unresolved and unresolvable --, then it would be nice to have the
alternative accentuation of the word indicated in the critical apparatus,
even though it really does NOT have any significant impact upon how we
understand the verse or convey it into our own vernacular.
May I say that although this may not have any earth-shaking importance, it
certainly has been a lot of fun? And thanks very much, Carlton, for the
research that you have put into your responses--I mean that quite sincerely.
And now, has anyone had time to run a check for IA- on TLG disk "D" in
quest of unquestionable perfect passive forms?
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/