Jonathan, this gets into the old question of five cases or eight cases; I
happen to be an eight-case person. I tell my beginning students first of
all that what I'm telling them is a pragmatic oversimplification, then that
the Greek dative endings are used for three functions that were originally
and often still quite distinct: (1) "true" dative functions that are more
often than not conveyed by the English prepositions "to" or "for" and
mostly with expressions indicating persons; (2) locative functions that are
more often than not conveyed by the English prepositions of "at" or "in"
with expressions of time or place; and (3) instrumental/sociative functions
that are more often than not conveyed by the English preposition "with." I
think it may be useful to illustrate each of these at the outset, but I
think it ought to be stated at the outset that these basic functions branch
out into several others that are complex, and that it will be easiest to
become acquainted with them one by one in simpler sentences, and then
gradually work outwards toward more sophisticated distinctions to be noted
by intermediate and advanced grammars. But I think personally that it's
important to be upfront and honest about the many, many ways in which Greek
and English expressions of both simple and complex ideas coincide only in
part.
As for the sentence above, one way to explain it is by saying that
DOULEUEIN is an intransitive verb that doesn't take a direct object, since
it means "be a servant"; then you can say "be a servant TO Lord Christ" or
"be a servant FOR Lord Christ." I would add, however, that even this is
only a stopgap. At some point one needs to get through that both datives
and accusatives can serve as DIRECT COMPLEMENTS to verbs, and perhaps get
away from the notion of an "object" that "receives" an action; one needs a
"structural" rather than a "syntactic" definition of these case usages. But
that's a much bigger question, and I broach it here only because the usage
of dative with the verb--even of a "true" dative, are more complicated than
the notion of an indirect object can indicate. At some point early in the
learning of Greek one needs to become familiar with the Dative of
Possession: one can make a stopgap translation of EMOI ESTI BIBLION as
"there is to me a book." EMOI is unquestionably a "true" dative here, but
it is not an indirect object and "there is to me a book" is not normal
English; one needs to learn that this means "I have a book."
Teaching and learning languages involve problems--a truism. They involve a
circular process of teaching/learning a mode of expression, then another,
then another, and so on, and then coming back and realizing that the first
mode of expression is more complex than it first appeared, but so is the
second, and so forth. I wouldn't want to be too dogmatic about this, but I
don't believe I've ever seen a grammar that hasn't had to come along later
in the course of things and explain that the first presentation of a
grammatical doctrine was an oversimplification of something considerably
more complex. So one needs to go step by step in teaching and learning, but
also one needs to have a certain amount of humility about the fact that it
really is a FOREIGN language one is learning or teaching--and also about
the fact that learning the FOREIGN language entails learning things about
one's native language that one wasn't really very well aware of if at all.
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/