Re: John 21:19/21 APOLOUQEI
Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Tue, 26 May 1998 11:45:19 -0400
At 11:13 AM -0400 5/26/98, dalmatia@eburg.com wrote:
>B-Greekers ~
>
>Awhile back, I did a translational try of these passages translating
>AKOLOUQEI as a present indicative 2nd middle, and was parsimoniously
>corrected to the imperative! I ate a huge serving of crow, and
>accepted the correction, after re-looking at my Zodhiates parsing,
>which I had misread, and went back to an imperative understanding.
>
> Then, this morning, I looked up this word on the Perseus page, and I
>come to find out that it is listed as BOTH. [plus 3 others in 3rd sg]
>
>Now my reading of this passage takes very kindly to the indicative
>mood, and what I would like to know is HOW the mood is determined in
>this passage. Is the imperative grammatically mandated? Or is it
>simply VERY generally understood as an imperative?
George, the context calls for the imperative. I think the emphatic SU in
vs. 21 makes it abundantly clear; moreover, Jesus has repeatedly,
throughout this passage, concluded his words to Peter with an imperative.
It is true that as an epsilon-contract verb AKOLOUQEW could have a
middle/passive indicative in -EI, although the more common spelling of that
contracted ending is -Hi. I must say, however, that although I haven't done
a check, I have rarely seen this verb accept in an absolute sense with a
dative complement.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/