Re: Mark 4:22: bad Greek?

Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Thu, 4 Sep 1997 08:59:34 -0500

At 9:14 AM -0500 9/4/97, J.D.F.=van=Halsema%BW_KG%TheoFilos@esau.th.vu.nl
wrote:
>Mk 4:22a is textcritically very uncertain:
>
>Nestle Aland 25 read with 01 A C L Delta 33 892 1241 1424 lat sy:
>OU GAR ESTIN TI KRUPTON EAN MH HINA .....
>
>N-Aland 26/27 reads with B D K Thet Fam 1&13 28 565 579 700 2427 2542 it co:
>OU GAR ESTIN KRUPTON EAN MH HINA....
>
>Codex Freerianus (W) reads:
>OUDEN GAR ESTIN KRUPTON EAN MH HINA...
>
>The parallel text in Luke 8: 17 reads:
>OU GAR ESTIN KRUPTON HO .....
>
>My question:
>is the reading in the latest editions of Nestle-Aland, and offered by some of
>the best manuscripts (B etc) grammatically correct?
>I mean: isn't the reading of W to be regarded as the correction of a scribe
>who thought that the reading of B etc was defective by lack of a subject?
>Luke 8:17 poses no problem, I think, because of the fact that the EAN MH HINA
>clause is dropped.
>
>By the way: Mt 10:26 reads:
>OUDEN GAR ESTIN KEKALUMMENON HO .....

I guess we'd better not get into how this bears upon the Synoptic question ;-)

Interesting indeed. If the text of NA26/27 IS grammatically correct and we
should read OU GAR ESTIN KRUPTON EAN MH hINA, then we must understand ESTIN
here as existential: "There is no hidden thing but that ..."

It surely does appear to me that Luke's text supports the construction of
KRUPTON as a substantive subject of ESTIN.

Personally I wouldn't say that the text is NA26/27 is "bad" Greek--in the
sense of being ungrammatical, but the alternatives with TI or OUDEN as
subject and KRUPTON as a predicate adjective (aye--and one that is both
qualitative and indefinite!) are superior from the perspective of
"approved" style.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/