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b-greek-digest V1 #586
b-greek-digest Thursday, 23 February 1995 Volume 01 : Number 586
In this issue:
Plural only nouns
Bible Works
Re: Lord's Prayer Question
Lord's Prayer Question
Re: Did Jesus Speak Greek?
Re: Lord's Prayer Question
Re: Lord's Prayer Question
Re: Plural only nouns
Re: Lord's Prayer/Metaphor & Simile
Re: Lord's Prayer Question
Re: 1Cor. 11:25-26
Re: God's Wrath and Mercy
Re: Plural only nouns
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: W.Burton@agora.stm.it
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 95 7:51:13 GMT
Subject: Plural only nouns
Dear Travis Bauer, I don't know why but as I was reading your post I
suddenly thought of the english nouns -eyeglasses- and -pants- as examples
of plural only nouns. In Italian there a few as well.
Bill Burton
------------------------------
From: W.Burton@agora.stm.it
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 95 7:56:2 GMT
Subject: Bible Works
Dear Diedre, I wanted to respond to yur question about the Logos CD for the
Dead Sea Scrolls. I bought it thinking it would be a usefull academic
reference. WRONG.
It's a wonderful, glitzy, electronic presentation of information about the
Scrolls but is NOT a good reference work, in my opinion.
It has video clips and music and wonderful still photos and has a lot of
information for explaining the history of the scrolls but you can't access
the texts themselves int he original script or even see photos of the mss.
in a way that you can study them. For me it was a great disappointment.
Now it's possible I'v eoverlooked something maybe someone else has found a
way to really study the scrolls with this. If so I'd like to hear about
it.
Bill Burton
------------------------------
From: Timothy Gaden <tjg@hermes.apana.org.au>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 09:51:51
Subject: Re: Lord's Prayer Question
>Regardless of the linguistic situation, and the history of this pericope
>(and that in Luke 11), isn't it pretty clear that Jesus
>addressed God as father (abba, pater, whatever) and that his disciples
>took up his example? And aren't there a few hermeneutical steps between
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>this historical conclusion and the question of how believers today should
>pray?
I think that this is an important point. The original post that
kicked this discussion off was phrased (I think) as two questions,
(i) Didn't Jesus tell people to address God (only) as father?,
(ii) Shouldn't we do the same?.
which might obscure some of those important hermeneutical steps. As
a result there is some confusion between tasks (not least in my own
mind), and questions are being raised which assume Jesus
(and/or the evangelists) thought in linguistic categories that we
consider normative, or which take it for granted that we are limited
in our own use by the answer(s) to (i).
Tim.
- --------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy Gaden - tjg@hermes.apana.org.au - Melbourne, Australia
- --------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
From: W.Burton@agora.stm.it
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 95 11:51:56 GMT
Subject: Lord's Prayer Question
As I recall the initiating question about the Lord's Prayer in the gospel
was, "Why did Jesus address God as father?" I would repeat that he
addressed God as father because he was a Palestinian Jew of the first
century. All Palestianian Jews addressed God as father in the first
century.
It seems important to me to remember that Jews and "christians" prayed
together inthe synagogues and elsewhere for some time before the expulsions
of Jamnia. Jewish prayer and Christian prayer was probably
indistinguishable for many years after the death of Jesus.
May I add another wrench to the works? IMHO the Lord's prayer is nothing
but an abbreviated Amidah of the sort that were very common at the time of
Jesus.
Thanks for the ongoing discussion
Bill Burton
------------------------------
From: Mark W Lucas <markl@stpetes.win-uk.net>
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 22:13:10
Subject: Re: Did Jesus Speak Greek?
>For evidence favoring the view that Jesus spoke Greek,
>even on occasion in his ministry, see Joseph A. Fitzmyer,
>"Did Jesus Speak Greek?," *Biblical Archaeology Review*
>18, #5 (Sept./Oct. 1992), 58-63. --Paul Moser, Loyola Univ.
>of Chicago.
>
There is also an intereseting artice by Stanley E Porter on this
subject entitled "Did Jesus Ever Teach in Greek?", *Tyndale
Bulletin* Volume 44.2 (November 1993)
Mark Lucas (London, UK)
Feel free to mail me direct on
markl@stpetes.win-uk.net
or compuserve 100025,1511
------------------------------
From: Carl W Conrad <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 05:34:34 -0600 (GMT-0600)
Subject: Re: Lord's Prayer Question
On Wed, 22 Feb 1995 W.Burton@agora.stm.it wrote:
> As I recall the initiating question about the Lord's Prayer in the gospel
> was, "Why did Jesus address God as father?" . . .
> Thanks for the ongoing discussion
Actually the original question's phrasing, "If God is our mother, ...,"
is the reason that the discussion has been through the whole range of
concerns about semantics, cultural climates, similes/metaphors,
singular/plural nouns, etc., etc. If the question had been phrased more
simply, "Did Jesus command us to address God as 'Father'?" I think the
thread would have come to an end ere now. The side issue of plural-only
nouns is a curious one in itself; we have some nouns with sharply
different meanings when used in the singular and when used in the plural:
glass/glasses; spectacle/spectacles; sight/sights, etc.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
------------------------------
From: Micheal Palmer <mpalmes@email.unc.edu>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 09:45:22 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Lord's Prayer Question
On Tue, 21 Feb 1995, James D. Ernest wrote:
> Regardless of the linguistic situation, and the history of this pericope
> (and that in Luke 11), isn't it pretty clear that Jesus
> addressed God as father (abba, pater, whatever) and that his disciples
> took up his example? And aren't there a few hermeneutical steps between
> this historical conclusion and the question of how believers today should
> pray?
Yes. You have a good point here. Answering the historical question of
Jesus' exact wording (including the language in which he spoke) will not
give a final answer to the question of how current Christians should
address God. There are other hermeneutical steps to be taken. We must ask
questions about the culture in which Jesus' words were spoken. We must
also ask questions about modern cultures and the implications of using
masculine terminology in these settings as compared to its use in
first-century Palestine.
I did not mean to imply that answering the historical question of Jesus'
wording would resolve these problems. Still, I think that in order to
answer that HISTORICAL question (but not the question of what we should do
now) we must assume one of the following:
1) Jesus spoke Greek and the Greek texts which we have represent his
wording.
2) Jesus did NOT speak Greek (in which case the HISTORICAL question is
unanswerable).
3) Jesus spoke Greek, but the Greek texts we have do not
represent his wording.
The third option is one which I did not make explicit in my earlier note.
The second one I have already addressed at some length. I would like now
to return briefly to the first option.
The first option does not really solve the modern day problem. If Jesus
did speak Greek and the texts we have do represent his wording we still
must *interpret* the significance of that wording. It is not absolutely
clear that the wording would constitute a command even in Jesus' own
time, given that the wording is different in Matthew and Luke and that in
Matthew the wording sets up the prayer as a model, not an exact formula
to be repeated. Even if we were to determine that it did constitute a
command at that time (which I clearly do not see as necessary), we
would still have to ask what the modern day equivalent would be. It is
far from obvious that the use of masculine terminology in first-century
Palestine had the same implications as the use of masculine terminology today.
Micheal W. Palmer
Mellon Research Fellow
Department of Linguistics
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
------------------------------
From: Micheal Palmer <mpalmes@email.unc.edu>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 10:34:14 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Plural only nouns
On Tue, 21 Feb 1995, Travis Bauer wrote:
> [DELETION]
> Not trying to argue goneus further in this posting, it seems to
> me that even though goneus does not occur in the singular in the NT that
> does not mean that a singular did not exist. This may be nit picking,
> but I can't think of any nouns in English or Indonesian that occur only
> in the plural. [DELETION addressed below]
Thank you for the non-combative tone.
Actually there are words which exist only in the plural in most
languages. A common example in English is 'police'. Can we talk about one
police? We normally speak of one policeman or even policewoman (at least
in my dialect). We can speak of one police STATION, but it is 'station'
which is singular here, with 'police' acting as a modifier (i.e. the
station where the police [plural] have their headquarters). Though I do
have to admit that this one may be changing. My three-year-old says
things like "I saw a police yesterday," to which I feel the urge to
respond, "You saw a policeman," but since I don't know whether he saw a
policeman or a policewoman, I let it pass. Perhaps in his version of
English there will be a singular usage of 'police.'
Still, the fact that there are words in most languages which have only
plural forms does not mean that GONEUS could not have had singular forms
in the hellenistic period. You have a good point here. We cannot take the
absence of any form to PROVE that it did not exist. That would be to
commit the fallacy of arguing from silence. Still, I think it is
significant that there is not a single example of GONEUS in the singular
in this period, while there are tremendous numbers of examples of MHTHR
and PATHR in the singular. While this does not prove that GONEUS could
not have ever been used, it does make the claim that Jesus could have
used GONEUS to mean 'parent' (singular) extremely weak.
> . . . Can we prove the existence of such nouns in Greek and if
> so, how? . . . .
I guess it would depend on what we are willing to accept as proof.
Clearly we cannot prove their existence in any absolute sense because we
cannot interview native speakers to see what they think. Statistical
information (such as I have given earlier) can at best establish
*probability*, not proof. It is highly improbable that Jesus could have
used GONEUS to mean 'parent' (singular), though we cannot know if it was
impossible.
I guess I should have been more careful with my wording in earlier posts.
Thank you, Travis, for the correction.
Micheal W. Palmer
------------------------------
From: George Ramsey <gramsey@cs1.presby.edu>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 10:05:12 -0400 (EST)
Subject: Re: Lord's Prayer/Metaphor & Simile
On Tue, 21 Feb 1995, Philip L. Graber wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Feb 1995, Timothy Gaden wrote:
>
> > Both are metaphors, which means that God is *like* a father is some
> > respects, but unlike a father in some. [deletion]
> >
> > The idea of naming God a *mother*, or using metaphors that express
> > God's 'motherliness' (as scripture does from time to time) is to point
> > to the ways in which that metaphor deepens our understanding of God's
> > character.
>
> Is there a distinction between a metaphor and a simile? I can think of
> numerous similes that use female imagery with regard to God, but no
> metaphors. Is that significant? I'm not trying to be combative. This is a
> question I've had for some time, and I've never found a satisfactory
> answer, unless it is (as has already been suggested) that grammatically
> masculine forms are often unmarked for gender while feminine forms are
> marked. Would that account for the difference in distribution between
> metaphor and simile?
Likewise with no interest in being combative:
For an essay by a professor of literature on the subject, see Roland M.
Frye (emeritus, U. of Penn.; also ex of the Folger Shakespeare Library),
"Language for God and Feminist Language," in INTERPRETATION 43/1
(Jan.1989), pp. 45-57. Frye argues for a careful distinction between
metaphor and simile and
even argues that an analogy can be drawn to the distinction between
homoousios and homoiousios. He cites an Israeli scholar whose survey of
the Hebrew Scriptures purportedly turned up "only four unequivocal
feminine similes for the deity, all in Isaiah (42:14; 45:10; 49:15;
66:13)." Frye avers: "A simple recognition is in order: God is very
rarely even _compared_ to a mother. He is never _called_ Mother, or
_addressed_ as Mother, in either Testament."
Perhaps Michael Bushnell will post his list of feminine metaphors for
comparison.
George W. Ramsey, Presbyterian College
------------------------------
From: "Larry W. Hurtado" <hurtado@cc.umanitoba.ca>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 11:06:50 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Re: Lord's Prayer Question
On Wed, 22 Feb 1995 W.Burton@agora.stm.it wrote:
> It seems important to me to remember that Jews and "christians" prayed
> together inthe synagogues and elsewhere for some time before the expulsions
> of Jamnia. Jewish prayer and Christian prayer was probably
> indistinguishable for many years after the death of Jesus.
> May I add another wrench to the works? IMHO the Lord's prayer is nothing
> but an abbreviated Amidah of the sort that were very common at the time of
> Jesus.
On the last item, Burton is basically correct. But it would be
perhaps slightly more correct to see the "Lord's Prayer" as an early
Christian adaptation of Jewish prayer practice/forms for use among
certain Christian groups.
More significantly, the earlier part of Burton's comments raise
questions, and he may somewhat oversimply portray matters here. Within a
very few years what we call early Christianity had developed into a
trans-geographical, trans-ethnic religious movement, with an aggressive
"mission" to Gentiles (esp. by Paul). This all happened within the lst
10-20 years of the Christian movement. By 50 CE (the earliest Pauline
letters), the thing is in full swing. So, although SOME Jewish
Christians may have continued to pray in synagogues with other Jews,
clearly not all Christians did so.
Moreover, I wonder what people do with Gal 4:4-6 and Rom 8:15-16,
both places where Paul refers to Christian address to God as "Abba,
Pater" and seems to make much of it as indicating the intimate standing
that Christians enjoy with God. This suggests a certain intense
religious meaning attached to prayer practice/formula, interesting that
the Aramaic "Abba" is preserved and used in documents to Greek-speaking
Chrisians.
Finally, 1 Cor 16:22 gives us another Aramaic prayer/invocation
formula "Marana tha", which most NT scholars today take to be an
invocation addressed to the glorified Jesus in early Aramaic-speaking
Christian groups. This certainly could not have been done with the
assent of non-Christian Jews in synagogue! So, early Christian
prayer/religious practice was far more than simply fitting into early
synagogue activities.
Larry Hurtado, Religion, Univ. of Manitoba
------------------------------
From: Bruce Terry <terry@bible.acu.edu>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 16:57:04 CST
Subject: Re: 1Cor. 11:25-26
On Thu, 16 Feb 1995, Darren Williamson wrote:
> I've been working in 1 Cor. 11 recently and am wondering how to
>translate v. 26. The question concerns whether the main verb in the
>apodosis should be translated as imperative or indicative. I think the
>traditional translation is the indicative "you are proclaiming" but wonder
>if it would make better sense and match up better with 11:25c to translate
>it as an imperative "proclaim!" The sense in 11:25c seems obviously to be
>imperatival, yet it uses the same kind of language (HOSAKIS GAR +
>subjunctive with a 2pl imperative verb in the apodosis) as in v. 26. The
>only real difference I can see is that the main imperative verb in v. 25c
>precedes the HOSAKIS GAR + subjunctive, whereas in v. 26 it follows it.
>Does anyone have any suggestions about this verse? Is it grammatically
>possible or neccessary to translate KATAGELETE as an imperative?
Darren--
Sentence level grammar is ambiguous at this point. Discourse grammar can,
however, provide some insights as to why we usually intuitively choose
imperative for the first construction and indicative for the latter.
The question hinges on how far the quotation from Jesus extends. If the
quotation extends through verse 26, one would expect KATAGGELLETE to be taken
as an imperative because Jesus would be talking about an event (eating and
drinking often) that was future from his time. There are three points,
however, against taking the quotation as extending through verse 26. First,
the term KURIOU is used. While Jesus sometimes referred to himself in the
third person, in this context he is quoted as using the first person. Paul is
more likely to have referred to him as KURIOS. Second, along the same line,
ELQHi is third person singular. Third, GAR in expository texttype (which this
would be if this is part of Jesus' quotation) introduces an elaboration ("Let
me explain further what I am talking about . . ."). A command to proclaim the
Lord's death hardly seems like an elaboration of TOUTO POIEITE "keep doing
this."
If however the quotation ends with verse 25, verse 26 would be part of the
narrative. Now GAR in a narrative generally introduces some sort of authorial
comment about the narrative. If this is the case, one would expect
KATAGGELLETE to be indicative, a tense which fits a comment much better than
the imperative. Second, Paul is giving instruction about an activity in which
the Corinthians are already engaged. This would tend to favor the use of the
indicative as explanation rather than the imperative. Third, in this section
Paul is discussing a problem that he had learned about through an oral report
(cf. 11:18). In the responses to oral reports in Corinthians, Paul was only
half as likely (11.4%) to use a command as in the responses to the
Corinthians' letter (23.5%). In answering problem situations about which he
had not been asked, he was more likely to explain why something should be done
than just command it. That would fit better with the indicative here.
- --Bruce
********************************************************************************
Bruce Terry E-MAIL: terry@bible.acu.edu
Box 8426, ACU Station Phone: 915/674-3759
Abilene, Texas 79699 Fax: 915/674-3769
********************************************************************************
------------------------------
From: Bruce Terry <terry@bible.acu.edu>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 15:56:08 CST
Subject: Re: God's Wrath and Mercy
On Sun, 12 Feb 1995, Bengt dman wrote:
>On Wed, 8 Feb 1995, Bruce Terry wrote:
>
>> beginning of a new section. ei can be translated "what if," especially if
>> the apodosis is missing. So in a given context ei de . . . can be translated
>> "but what if . . . ." In this context, however, IMHO the RSV is wrong in
>> doing so. This sentence has an apodosis, as shown by the kai beginning
>> verse 23. The sequence ei . . . kai . . . may be translated "if . . . then
>> . . ." as in Gal. 4:7 (KJV; RSV). Robertson refers to kai in the apodosis
>> in his big grammar (p.1181). The construction is not common, but it occurs
>
>This sounds very plausible to me. I wonder why none of the commentaries I
>consulted mention this? Every one states that the apodosis _is_ missing. Is
>there a lack of knowledge among the authors or what? I also have only seen
>_one_ translation that comes even close to yours:
>
>> 22 But if, although God wished to show his anger and make known his power,
>> he put up in much patience with the vessels of anger, ready for
>> destruction, 23 then he put up with them in order that he might make known
>> the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy, which he previously
>> prepared for glory.
>
>and that is Martin Luther's. Is there any other that doesn't treat the
>passage as the apodosis missing? How sure are you that it isn't? Anyway,
>I believe you and thank you very much for your suggestions.
Bengt--
Thanks for the kind words. Martin Luther, IMHO, is good company to be in. I
don't know why more commentaries and translations don't notice the beginning
of the apodosis marked by kai. It is, as I previously noted, not real common,
but common enough that I remembered that ei ... kai ... means "if ... then
..." I ran across another example in preparing for my Greek class today in
John 13:14. I also noted a couple of examples of clauses that are elided
where the meaning spreads from a previous clause in John 12:47 and 13:18. I
don't know where I learned this. Maybe just from observation as I read?
Probably not. I'm sure I have forgotten who first pointed it out to me. I
can be sure that there is an apodosis here, however, only from continued
observation of these syntactic features noted above.
- --Bruce
********************************************************************************
Bruce Terry E-MAIL: terry@bible.acu.edu
Box 8426, ACU Station Phone: 915/674-3759
Abilene, Texas 79699 Fax: 915/674-3769
********************************************************************************
------------------------------
From: Bruce Terry <terry@bible.acu.edu>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 15:25:14 CST
Subject: Re: Plural only nouns
Travis Bauer wrote:
>I can't think of any nouns in English or Indonesian that occur only
>in the plural.
Travis--
What about "cattle"?
- --Bruce
********************************************************************************
Bruce Terry E-MAIL: terry@bible.acu.edu
Box 8426, ACU Station Phone: 915/674-3759
Abilene, Texas 79699 Fax: 915/674-3769
********************************************************************************
------------------------------
End of b-greek-digest V1 #586
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