>And finally, to carry that one step
>further, the two phrases, PORNEUSAI and FAGEIN EIDWLOQUTA, are interpreted
>to be alternative phrases meaning the same thing. That's what the JB
>translators have evidently interpreted it to be, an instance of hendiadys,
>the rhetorical usage of two terms together to refer to a single idea.
I thought I knew a lot about hens, but I had never heard the term hendiadys
before. Since it wasn't in the index of "The Family Poultry Flock", I tried
Smyth's Greek Grammar. Just in case I'm not the only ignorant person out
there, let me spell out what Rev Craig and Carl are telling me.
KAI can apparently be used to combine two substantives to produce the
equivalent of an adjective+substantive or substantive+attributive
genitive. Here are two examples from Smyth:
CRONWi KAI POLIORKIA = by length of time and siege = by a long siege
hASPIDWN TE KAI STRATOU = armed force
Incidentally, most of my NT grammars had no more to say on the subject than
"The Family Poultry Flock" did. Robertson's shorter Grammar had no mention
of it, and his MYT had an entry which pointed to a list of figures of speech
which weren't worth dissecting. A handful of introductory grammars did not
have it in their index. Blass-Debrunner-Rehkopf and Zerwick are the only two
NT grammars I have in which I found a discussion of hendiadys.
Here are some examples from Zerwick (#460):
Acts 23:6 PERI ELPIDOS KAI ANASTASEWS ( = "the hope of resurrection")
Mark 6:26 DIA TOUS ORKOUS KAI TOUS ANAKEIMENOUS ( = "because of the oath in
presence of the guests")
Zerwick also gives some examples with verbs:
Lk 6:48 ESKAYEN KAI EBAQUNEN ( = "deepened by digging", or in BDF's
translation, "dug deep")
Mk 11:24 hOSA PROSEUCESQE KAI AITEISQE ( = "whatever you ask for in prayer")
And here are some examples from Blass-Debrunner-Rehkopf:
Phil 1:11 EIS DOKSAN KAI EPAINON QEOU (= "to the praise of God's glory",
c.f. Eph 1:14 EIS EPAINON THS DOKSHS AUTOU)
Luke 2:47 EPI THi SUNSEI KAI TAIS APOKRISESIN AUTOU (= "at his
understandable answers")
Rom 10:20 ISAIAS DE APOTOLMAi KAI LEGEI ( = "but Isaiah boldly said")
Also, I checked my translations, and found that some translations almost
never interpret these passages as hendiasys (e.g. NASU), and others
generally do (e.g. NRSV). A number of things which the RSV did not interpret
as hendiasys have been changed to take hendiasys into account in the NRSV.
So I learned something useful on B-Greek today! Thanks, Rev. Craig and Carl!
Jonathan
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Jonathan Robie jwrobie@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~jwrobie
POET Software, 3207 Gibson Road, Durham, N.C., 27703 http://www.poet.com
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