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b-greek-digest V1 #587
b-greek-digest Friday, 24 February 1995 Volume 01 : Number 587
In this issue:
Re: Plural only nouns
Plural only nouns
God as Mother in NT
Colossians in a beginners class?
DSS Revealed CD-ROM
Lord's Prayer Question
Re: Lord's Prayer Question
Re: Plural only nouns
Unsubscribe request
Re: Plural only nouns
Re: Lord's Prayer Question
Re: Colossians in a beginners class?
The article in Homer
Luke
Lord's prayer
Greek class on Luke
Re: Plural only nouns
Re: Plural only nouns
Re: Lord's prayer
Re: Luke
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Travis Bauer <bauer@acc.jc.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 07:04:23 -36000
Subject: Re: Plural only nouns
Thank you for your responses to my query. It is always dangerous
to make a blanket statement like the one I did, especially to a group of
scholars. However, I'm afraid that the proposed words don't really fit
the pattern that I requested.
Words like eyeglasses and pants are singular, but plural in
form. The singular does exist. In the sentence, "I am wearing
eyeglasses," eyeglasses is a singular noun even though it looks plural.
The word cattle does have a singular, cow. It may not follow a
set pattern, but if, in two thousand years on B-English, scholars are
discussing the question of whether some author could have used a singular
for cattle, the answer would be yes.
But that is all a bit beside the point of my question. I'm
wondering if it is reasonable to say that in Greek, nouns existed, plural
in form and in meaning which have no singular form. One can logically
figure out what the singular would be, but it simply does not exist. The
noun may seem to fit a given pattern in the plural, but simply not exist in the
singular. Micheal Palmer showed that this is not necessary for the goneus
discussion in the Lord's Prayer, but I'm wondering if the argument that the
text couldn't have had goneus because the singular simply did not exist
would be a valid.
------------------------------
From: BROWNFIELD/MARTIN <mpbrownf@fedex.com>
Date: Thu 23 Feb 1995 06:59 CT
Subject: Plural only nouns
Bruce Terry wrote:
> 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
>
I have yet another: "scissors".
Marty.
------------------------------
From: PAM MACKENZIE <pam.mackenzie@syncomm.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 95 07:34:00 -0400
Subject: God as Mother in NT
My Greek is pretty rusty, but may I suggest that James 1:18 has for many
years seemed to me to be a birthing rather than a begetting image.
NEB
Of his set purpose, by declaring the truth , he gave us birth to be a
kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
NRSV
In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of
truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
The verb in question here, apokueo, seems to be unambiguously feminine,
in spite of the male pronouns.
Pam MacKenzie
pammack@spiritnet.com
pam.mackenzie@syncomm.com
------------------------------
From: PAM MACKENZIE <pam.mackenzie@syncomm.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 95 07:36:00 -0400
Subject: Colossians in a beginners class?
I don't post much on this list because my Greek is so rusty, but I do
enjoy reading and learning from everyone else's lists. I have a quick
question which I hope some of you professors can help me with.
I'm writing a novel set at Union Theological Seminary in 1974-5, and in
the second semester, I'm having the two main characters attend a seminar
on Paul in which they will explore Colossians in depth. Here's the
question: Is it reasonable to expect students who have just completed
the Intro to NT Greek course (using Wenham's textbook, if you need to
know that) to be able to read the Greek of Colossians?
Most of the beginning Greek exegesis courses I have heard of made use of
John or the Synoptics, not Paul. But for the purposes of my story, I
need these characters to exegete Colossians. And I'd prefer to have them
use Greek if it's reasonable to do so.
Thanx for your opinions on this. You can post to the list or answer me
privately:
Pam MacKenzie
pammack@spiritnet.com
pam.mackenzie@syncomm.com
------------------------------
From: Robert Kraft <kraft@ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 10:11:17 -0500 (EST)
Subject: DSS Revealed CD-ROM
In reply to Bill Burton's gloomy assessment of the value of the DSS
Revealed CD-ROM from Logos Systems, I would refer any interested parties
to the materials available by gopher and WWW from my current Dead Sea
Scrolls Seminar here at Penn (there is even a "DSS" list to which one
can subscribe by mailing to listserv@ccat.sas.upenn.edu the message
subscribe dss -- this is a MajorDomo server, for those in the know, but
it is set up to answer to the listserv address).
For further information, gopher to ccat.sas.upenn.edu, choose "Credit
Courses," then "Religious Studies," then "225" (the course number) and
look around. There is a review of the CD-ROM in the "Reviews" folder,
and information on accessing the pictures individually through a program
like Adobe PhotoShop is underway; with the appropriate software, it is a
simple process, once you know what you want to see and where it is (thus
the need for an index). For WWW people, the easy route to all this is
through my homepage, under courses, 225:
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html
To see how the course is going, check the class minutes folder.
Bob Kraft, UPenn
- ---
Responding to:
From: W.Burton@agora.stm.it
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 95 7:56:2 GMT
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: W.Burton@agora.stm.it
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 95 17:43:34 GMT
Subject: Lord's Prayer Question
Larry Hurtado, thank you for your thoughtful replies. Let me continue the
discussion.
Larry Hurtado has made a good point on Wednesday, 22 Feb. by saying that
with Pauline
preaching and praxis, Christian prayer begins to take divergent path from
that of contemporary
Judaism. But I think Larry overstates the case (probably to the same
extent that I've
oversimplified the case!) :-)
Paul was primarily writing to non-Jews in his letters to Galatians, Romans
and Corinthians. An
explanation of the word "abba" would not necessarily mark it as an overly
significant element of
early Christian prayer. Any Jew writing to non-Hebrew speakers might do
the same. I'm not
saying that this prayer wasn't becoming specifically identified to the
early Christians BUT it's use
of the paternal address does NOT make it in anyway peculiar to Christians
nor does it in anyway
distinguish it from common Jewish prayer.
As for Paul's citation of the Aramaic (it could be Hebrew as well) "abba;"
this could well be the
tendency of any and most prayers to retain archaic or anomalous forms. How
many English
speaking Christians retain foreign or archaic forms in their prayers: thou,
thy name, thy
kingdom, alleluia, amen, hail Mary, etc. Let's not overlook the citation
of "foreign" words and
phrases of Jesus retained in the gospels' miracle stories and passion
narratives. The use of such
"exotic" words or phrases may simply denote a story telling technique or it
may indicate a very
strong oral tradition behind the telling.
Larry, I''m not prepared to concede anything special about addressing God
as father by Christians
till after the time of Paul. Perhaps the smallest beginnings of such a
thing can be found in Paul
but I wouldn't ascribe it as being distinguishable from Jewish prayer
praxis till well into the second
century. (Did I just hear you yell?) :-)
I would suggest that the disciples were shocked when Jesus answered their
request to teach "us how
to pray." Not shocked by the uniqueness of this prayer or it's address of
God as Father but by the
fact that it was the prayer they were already reciting three times a day
anyway! "But's that's
nothing new! That's the prayer that we recite every morning, noon and
night already!"
Bill Burton, O.F.M.
STD Candidate - Gregorian University, Rome
P.S. If anyone is interested in some bibliography behind my ramblings, I'll
be happy to post
them.
------------------------------
From: Bruce Terry <terry@bible.acu.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 13:15:18 CST
Subject: Re: Lord's Prayer Question
On Wed, 22 Feb 1995, Timothy Gaden wrote:
>My understanding is that metaphors are a sub-class of similes: a
>metaphor is defined as a simile without a 'like' or 'as'.
Tim--
I would have said myself that a simile is a marked metaphor.
- --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: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 13:25:40 CST
Subject: Re: Plural only nouns
On Thu, 23 Feb 1995, Travis Bauer wrote:
> The word cattle does have a singular, cow.
Travis--
If 'cow' is the singular of 'cattle', what is 'cows'?
More seriously, I think the question you originally wanted to raise is, "Is
there a plural noun in plural form which cannot be used for the singular?"
Police and cattle are plural, but have no plural morpheme marking them as
such. Eyeglasses, pants, and sissors are plural, but can be used of one pair
(often with the word 'pair').
- --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: Jeshurun@aol.com
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 14:37:13 -0500
Subject: Unsubscribe request
unsubscribe b-greek-digest
------------------------------
From: "R. Glenn Wooden" <glenn.wooden@acadiau.ca>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 15:08:26 ADT
Subject: Re: Plural only nouns
I know this is not an English list, but this must be addressed as
the English is being used to illustrate the Greek. Please use a
dictionary before writing!
> Words like eyeglasses and pants are singular, but plural in
> form. The singular does exist. In the sentence, "I am wearing
> eyeglasses," eyeglasses is a singular noun even though it looks plural.
This is clearly wrong. There is a singular for the word eyeglasses.
AN eyeglass is one piece of glass (monocle) used to enhance an eye's
ability to see. Eyeglasses are made of TWO pieces of glass held
together by metal/plastic. "Eyeglasses" is therefore grammatically
plural, although in use it has come to be considered singular. But,
if someone talked about AN eyeglass, we all would know what was
meant.
"Pants" is an abbreviation for "pantaloons" (OED), a plural. This
plural has come to be used for AN item, although it is plural in its
derivarion. That it is still latently plural is shown by the form of
the verb that we use with it--a plural.
> The word cattle does have a singular, cow. It may not follow a
> set pattern, but if, in two thousand years on B-English, scholars are
> discussing the question of whether some author could have used a singular
> for cattle, the answer would be yes.
"Cattle" is a form of "chattle". The counterparts of cows (PLURAL)
are bulls (oxen if castrated) both of which are bovine, more
specifically, members of the genus Bos. Cattle is a singular--a
collective noun, although we use it as a plural, but it is NOT the
plural of cow.
> But that is all a bit beside the point of my question. I'm
> wondering if it is reasonable to say that in Greek, nouns existed, plural
> in form and in meaning which have no singular form. One can logically
> figure out what the singular would be, but it simply does not exist. The
> noun may seem to fit a given pattern in the plural, but simply not exist in the
> singular.
You mean that we have no record of its existence in the singular AT
THAT TIME?
> Micheal Palmer showed that this is not necessary for the goneus
> discussion in the Lord's Prayer, but I'm wondering if the argument
that the
> text couldn't have had goneus because the singular simply did not exist
> would be a valid.
It seems to me that you must first prove that the singular did not
exist at that time and when it ceased to exist (unless this has
already been done). Unless you can do that you can only say
something like: "it may be that the singular of goneus ceased to be
used by this time (or some other time) or in this speaker's/writer's
dialect and so was not an option for the speaker/writer in this
circumstance."
Glenn Wooden
Acadia Divinity College
Wolfville N.S.
Canada
wooden@acadiau.ca
------------------------------
From: "Theodore F. Brunner" <tbrunner@uci.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 12:20:27 -0800
Subject: Re: Lord's Prayer Question
>On Wed, 22 Feb 1995, Timothy Gaden wrote:
>
>>My understanding is that metaphors are a sub-class of similes: a
>>metaphor is defined as a simile without a 'like' or 'as'.
>
>Tim--
>
>I would have said myself that a simile is a marked metaphor.
>
>--Bruce
>
>*******************************************************************************
See Aristotle, Rhet. 3.2 and Quintilian, Inst. Or. 7.6.8
Ted Brunner
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Theodore F. Brunner, Director Phone: (714) 824-7031
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae FAX: (714) 824-8434
University of California Irvine
Irvine, CA 92717-5550 USA E-Mail: TBRUNNER@UCI.EDU
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
------------------------------
From: Bruce Terry <terry@bible.acu.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 15:33:05 CST
Subject: Re: Colossians in a beginners class?
On Thu, 23 Feb 95, Pam MacKenzie wrote:
>I'm writing a novel set at Union Theological Seminary in 1974-5, and in
>the second semester, I'm having the two main characters attend a seminar
>on Paul in which they will explore Colossians in depth. Here's the
>question: Is it reasonable to expect students who have just completed
>the Intro to NT Greek course (using Wenham's textbook, if you need to
>know that) to be able to read the Greek of Colossians?
>
>Most of the beginning Greek exegesis courses I have heard of made use of
>John or the Synoptics, not Paul. But for the purposes of my story, I
>need these characters to exegete Colossians. And I'd prefer to have them
>use Greek if it's reasonable to do so.
Pam--
It is possible if they were using John D. Grassmick's 1974 book _Principles
and Practice of Greek Exegesis_, which is based on Colossians. But I wonder
if a teacher at Union would choose a text written at Dallas Theological
Seminary?
- --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: Rod Decker <rod.j.decker@uwrf.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 18:33:59 -0600
Subject: The article in Homer
I'm working my way (slowly) through Thomas Middleton's classic work on the
Greek article: _The Doctrine of the Greek Article Applied to the Criticism
and Illustration of the New Testament_ (London, 1833). To my knowledge it's
the last major work written on the article. There are, of course, entries
in the grammars and a few journal articles. Have I missed anything more
recent? He devotes one chapter to the use of the article in Homer. Since
I'm not a classicist, I don't know what the debate was or is on that
subject. I gather that there was disagreement at least in the early 19th
century to the effect that the article was supposed to be a later
development than Homer, who used the same form as a pronoun. Could anyone
briefly fill me in on that debate or direct me to a source that would do
so?
Thanks,
Rod
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rod Decker Calvary Theological Seminary
Asst. Prof./NT Kansas City, Missouri
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
------------------------------
From: Richard Lindeman <RichLind@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 16:47:04 -0800
Subject: Luke
I will be teaching a class on St. Luke in biblical greek at a local college for the first time this next fall.
These will be intermediate level students. This will also be my first experience of teaching college level
students. Any suggestions on materials to use and etc... ?
- --
***********************************************************
"I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God
unto salvation for everyone who believes." Romans 1:16
Rev. Richard Lindeman
Olive Branch Lutheran Church
2135 Northdale Blvd NW, Coon Rapids, MN 55433, USA
(612) 755-2663
E-Mail:RichLind@ix.netcom.com
------------------------------
From: CRL6420@seward.ccsn.edu
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 19:43:06 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Lord's prayer
An interesting point that has come up in passing concerning the Lord's
prayer...
The imperative form used in "Pray in this way" is a present imperative
form. Though most translations give equivalent translations of aorists
and presents, it is inappropriate.
The present tense implies continued action whereas the aorist is
punctiliar. Because the imperative in question is present, a better
translation would be "Continue to pray in this way." This would seem to
support a Jewish form for the Lord's prayer and a Jewish antecedent for
Christians addressing God as Father.
This is addressed in an article by Robert Hoerber in the Concordia
Journal... I can get more specific bibliographic citation if you are
interested.
Charlie Lehmann
Undergraduate, Concordia College - Seward, NE
------------------------------
From: CRL6420@seward.ccsn.edu
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 19:47:24 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Greek class on Luke
I would suggest Synopis Quattor Evangilorium, distributed by ABS... It
will allow students to compare Luke to the other synoptics and John. It
was used in my fourth semester Greek course to good effect. It also has
the advantage of having the commentaries of some of the patristics
included in footnote form, and in Greek. It is a good book for the
students to have anyway.
Charlie Lehmann
Undergraduate, Concordia College - Seward, NE
------------------------------
From: Micheal Palmer <mpalmes@email.unc.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 23:39:23 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Plural only nouns
On Thu, 23 Feb 1995, Travis Bauer wrote:
> Words like eyeglasses and pants are singular, but plural in
> form. The singular does exist. In the sentence, "I am wearing
> eyeglasses," eyeglasses is a singular noun even though it looks plural.
> The word cattle does have a singular, cow. It may not follow a
> set pattern, but if, in two thousand years on B-English, scholars are
> discussing the question of whether some author could have used a singular
> for cattle, the answer would be yes.
I resisted responding to this message for some time because I do not want
to sound combative. I finally decided to answer, though, because I think
the issue being debated is an important one, and there are some
misstatements (I'm sure unintentional) here which really should be corrected.
Words like 'pants' and 'eyeglasses' are not 'singular, but plural in
form.' They function SYNTACTICALLY, not just in form, as plural. A native
speaker of English does not say, for example,
*This pants fits me very poorly
and not even
*These pants fits me very poorly
Any determiners (such as this/these/that/those) used with 'pants' must be
plural. Any verbs used with 'pants' or 'eyeglasses' must be plural. We
must say
These eyeglasses are wonderful
not
*This eyeglasses is wonderful
Perhaps what has confused Travis here is that words like 'pants' and
'eyeglasses' may be used in contexts which refer to real-world entities
which are singular. For example, when we say
These pants fit me poorly
we are referring to ONE PAIR of pants. But notice that in order to say
this I had to say PAIR of pants. It is the word 'pair' which is
grammatically singular here, not 'pants.' The number of items in the
real world is not directly relevant to the linguistic function of words
like 'pants'. When we want to specify a number of real-world entities
which the word pants represents in a given context, we must include
'pair' to help with this function precisely because 'pants' cannot be
made singular--not only in form, but also in syntactic agreement.
Travis also makes an innocent mistake in his proposal that 'cow' is the
singular form of 'cattle'. Check any of the more linguistically reputable
dictionaries of English, for example, and you will find the two words
listed separately as just that, two separate words. The reason is simple.
'Cow' is a word which has been in the English language for a very long
time with its own plural: 'cows'. In Old English the singular was 'ku-'. It
came to Old English from Old High German, where it was 'kou'. At no
point in this history was it associated with the ancestors of our word
'cattle'. 'Cattle' came into English as a loan word from Old Norman
French. There it meant personal property, not the plural of a word for
cow. The word came into English while the Normans controlled England. It
was used for the capital held by landowners, which in most instances
included many cows (note the plural). Over time it became associated with
their primary capital, the cows. As a result English now has two words
which are related to those docile animals. One has both singular and
plural forms: cow/cows. The other has only a plural form: cattle.
Travis did not mention my earlier example: 'police'. Almost any
dictionary of English will list this word as a plural noun. It differs
from the others discussed above in that the entity in the real world that
it refers to is clearly plural. I will not repeat the arguments for that
analysis here, however, since I gave them at some length earlier.
> . . . I'm
> wondering if it is reasonable to say that in Greek, nouns existed, plural
> in form and in meaning which have no singular form. One can logically
> figure out what the singular would be, but it simply does not exist. The
> noun may seem to fit a given pattern in the plural, but simply not exist in the
> singular.
Well, yes, it is reasonable. In fact, Greek would be a rather odd
language if it did not have at least one or two such words. Most of the
worlds languages have at least a few.
> Micheal Palmer showed that this is not necessary for the goneus
> discussion in the Lord's Prayer, but I'm wondering if the argument that the
> text couldn't have had goneus because the singular simply did not exist
> would be a valid.
Well, I probably stated that argument to forcefully at first. We cannot
prove that GONEUS did not have a singular form, because it is possible
that it had one but it just happens that no documents have survived which
contain it. Given the large number of documents which exist from the
hellenistic period, though, and the fact that they contain a very high
number of references to parents, all using MHTHR or PATHR, and none
using the singular form GONEUS, I think that it is extremely unlikely
that the singular form GONEUS was used at this point in time or would
have been accepted as correct if it someone had inferred it from the
plural form GONEIS and used it in conversation.
You have a point though, that resolving this problem will not solve the
problem of whether or not the use of PATHR in the Lord's prayer
constitutes a command to use masculine terminology.
I hope I have not sounded too combative. I harbor no ill will toward
Travis. In fact, it seems obvious to me that he is very interested in an
accurate understanding of the text. I just think the linguistic point is an
important one. Linguists have noted the existence of plural-only nouns
in many languages, and for good, well researched reasons.
Micheal W. Palmer
Mellon Research Fellow
Department of Linguistics
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
------------------------------
From: Stan Anderson <ANDERSOS@cgs.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 20:51:46 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: Plural only nouns
> Please use a
> dictionary before writing!
- -snip-
> Cattle is a singular--a
> collective noun, although we use it as a plural, but it is NOT the
> plural of cow.
Both of my dictionaries here at home list cattle as a plural noun. :-)
Furthermore, in my dialect cattle would always take a plural verb,
unlike collective nouns like hair or money, which would take a
singular verb. I.e. my hair is brown, my money is gone, but the
cattle _are_ stampeding.
I think cattle may be a very good parallel to the question about the
plural specifically because it is also gender neutral. One may have a
herd of cows, a herd of bulls, or a herd of cattle. Both cow and bull
(as well as steer, heifer, and ox) have singular and plural forms.
However cattle has only a plural use and applies to groups of mixed
gender.
Stan Anderson
The Claremont Graduate School
Institute for Antiquity and Christianity
ANDERSOS@CGS.EDU
------------------------------
From: Micheal Palmer <mpalmes@email.unc.edu>
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 00:28:36 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Lord's prayer
On Thu, 23 Feb 1995 CRL6420@seward.ccsn.edu wrote:
> An interesting point that has come up in passing concerning the Lord's
> prayer...
>
> The imperative form used in "Pray in this way" is a present imperative
> form. Though most translations give equivalent translations of aorists
> and presents, it is inappropriate.
>
> The present tense implies continued action whereas the aorist is
> punctiliar. Because the imperative in question is present, a better
> translation would be "Continue to pray in this way." This would seem to
> support a Jewish form for the Lord's prayer and a Jewish antecedent for
> Christians addressing God as Father.
You need to read Buist Fanning's account of present and aorist
imperatives. He and Stanley Porter have both done an adequate job of
demonstrating with impressive documentation that the traditional view
which you give of the present implying the continuation of an action
already in progress and the aorist being punctiliar is not accurate.
Fanning argues that a better way of understanding the present imperative
is that it demands that an action (whether or not already in progress)
become CHARACTERISTIC of a person's actions/lifestyle. That is, the use
of the present in the Lord's prayer does not indicate that the listeners
were already praying in the prescribed way, but that--whether or not they
were--they should make such prayer characteristic of what they do in the
future.
Use of the aorist, according to Fanning, would not necessarily imply that
such prayer should become characteristic of the way they pray.
I should point out that I'm not sure how much of this comes from his
book. I have discussed the matter with him personally on several
occasions, and what I am reporting may come in part from those
conversations. I don't have a copy of the book here at home to check.
Micheal W. Palmer
Mellon Research Fellow
Department of Linguistics
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
------------------------------
From: Kenneth Litwak <kenneth@sybase.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 95 21:46:31 PST
Subject: Re: Luke
Richard,
I would highly recommend I. Howard Marshall's NIGTC on Luke, Eerdmans/Pa-
ternoster. Also, I think John Nolland's WBC commentary is good, and a little
more current than Marshall's.
Ken Litwak
EMeryville, CA
------------------------------
End of b-greek-digest V1 #587
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