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b-greek-digest V1 #616
b-greek-digest Thursday, 16 March 1995 Volume 01 : Number 616
In this issue:
Re: Text Types; Erasmus
Re: Honor, Shamelessness, and Cynics
Nida
Redaction criticism/Mark's Gospel
Re: Mack on Q1 and Cynics
Re: Lexical Contacts and Cluster Analysis
Re: Nida
unsub
Re: Question on homothumadon
Lex. Cont. and Cl. Analysis-brf. biblio?
Re: Lexical Contacts and Cluster Analysis
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Orthopodeo@aol.com
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 16:22:54 -0500
Subject: Re: Text Types; Erasmus
<By the way, Harry Sturz, was an exceedingly "fine gentleman" and one of the
very best teachers that I have ever had.>
All I can say is this: every person I've spoken to about Dr. Sturz has made
the exact same comment, and no matter what you might think of his textual
perspectives, leaving a legacy like *that* is something special.
James>>>
------------------------------
From: "David B. Gowler" <dgowler@rock.ncren.net>
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 14:40:25 -0400
Subject: Re: Honor, Shamelessness, and Cynics
Greg Carey wrote, in part:
>Are there examples of Jesus using shamelessness in this way? Perhaps
>an example might be in Luke 6.1-5, the plucking of grain on the
>Sabbath, in which Jesus uses a shameless behavior in order to make an
>opportunity for his pronouncement in 6.5. (On the other hand, the
>Pharisees are watching Jesus, which indicates that his status is
>already "prominent."
>
>There is also the commission to the disciples in Luke 10, and the
>parable of the widow and the judge (18.1-8) which Greg Bloomquist
>mentioned. I wonder whether the larger pattern of shamelessness in
>Luke might be more complex than when this discussion began.
It is clear that Greg and I are approaching this issue in slightly
different ways (note his use of "shameless" and my use of "shameful"), but
I think we will meet in the middle! Thanks to him also for the reference
to Scott's book.
I think the best place to find the "shamelessness" that Greg is talking
about is in the parable tradition. What I find interesting, however, is
that the narrator always seems to co-opt this "shamefulness" (and its
critique of power structures) to reinforce a Jesus-based virtue code (thus,
in effect, creating a new structure). In literary terms, the diegetic
level "domesticates" items in the hypodiegetic level.
Take, for example, Luke 14 -- and I recommend the forthcoming book by Willi
Braun (Cambridge Press, rev. from his U. Toronto diss): _Feasting and
Social Rhetoric in Luke 14_ (The Rhetoric and NT SBL section will be
reviewing it in Philadelphia).
Braun's work is an advance in methodology, but one of his points concerning
Luke 14 is that the householder in the parable is a victim of deliberate
peer exclusion. Initially, he had wanted to enhance his elite status with
his invitation of "balanced reciprocity," but he ends up abandoning that
(elite) system, and -- through his renewed invitations -- abandons also its
logic and pattern: He no longer lives his life by those rules. This
signifies his "conversion."
The narrator, however, still uses that story to indict the hubris of the
Pharisees (they are the antitypes here), so the narrator plays a revised
but similar game with different players. Thus what the parable seems to
destroy, the narrator reassembles in a different structure -- based on
vertical generalized reciprocity (in a similar fashion, the "purity code"
is replaced by the "virtue code" of the Lukan Jesus).
I would be interested in seeing if Greg or anyone else has found a passage
in Luke in which this "shamelessness" is not co-opted by the narrator.
This complexity of narration makes this issue a fertile ground for social,
rhetorical study, as well as for what Bakhtin called the "dialogic" nature
of certain narratives. And, what are the ethical implications for these
apparent nuances of the "power" involved with the approaches found in Luke
- -- at both of the above-mentioned levels of narration?
David
*****************************************
David B. Gowler
Associate Professor of Religion
Chowan College
internet: dgowler@rock.ncren.net
or: dgowler@micah.chowan.edu
------------------------------
From: DDDJ@aol.com
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 17:45:43 -0500
Subject: Nida
<<You may obtain Louw & Nida on disk from Silver Mt Software (John Baima on
this list).>>
Mac? Is this the domain lexicon or somrthing else. CD Rom?
Dennis
------------------------------
From: "Marmorstein, Art" <marmorsa@wolf.northern.edu>
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 95 17:29:00 CST
Subject: Redaction criticism/Mark's Gospel
I haven't seen the Peabody book, but the idea of trying to find linguistic
differences between source and redaction material in Mark isn't anything new.
E.J. Pryke in the late 70's wrote a book called something like "Redaction
Criticism and Marcan Style." He came up with a preliminary division of
"source" and "redaction" material based on the ideas of Bultmann and
Dibelius, found some differences in vocabulary and grammar, then used these
differences to reclassify some Marcan passages based on linguistic grounds.
The argument wasn't very convincing. Most of the vocabulary differences he
found involved time words (euthws, for instance). He also cited things like
the use of the genitive absolute as pointing to the hand of the redactor.
Obviously enough, the initial assumptions of the redaction critics made it
inevitable that time references would be over-represented in "redaction"
material and so the whole thing was basically an exercise in circular
reasoning: indications of time point to a redactor, there are more time
references in the redaction passages, therefore we have linguistic evidence
that there really is a difference between the source and redaction material.
Not very impressive.
------------------------------
From: "Larry W. Hurtado" <hurtado@cc.umanitoba.ca>
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 11:10:30 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Re: Mack on Q1 and Cynics
I agree with Greg Bloomquist in avoiding trying the patience of e-mail
readers on such a list as this, but lest I appear ungrateful for his
detailed response to my questions, I shall respond briefly. First,
thanks to Greg for clarifying how he uses/understands "facts". It is as
I supposed; we do use the term differently. Though I do demur from the
label "positivistic" if I may. I would simply refer to "facts" as those
phenomena that strike us as undeniable aspects of experience that do not
appear to rest upon our subjective life. Greg appears to incorporate
into the term a more fluid assortment of things, and, if I may say so,
seems to me not to take sufficiently seriously the unavoidable need to
distinguish between things that are heavily determined by theory and
things that require little theory. Thus, the linguistic phenomena that
cry out for some explanation and that is the bedrock of source-critical
work that has generated the Q-hypothesis is simply "there", though, to be
sure various things can be done with these data (such as Greg illustrates
by setting these data if this or that interpretive context).
I quite agree that nothing we are conscious of is free of
assumptions, theories, interpretations, a great deal of it unacknowledged
and even unconscious. But that simply makes all the more important the
distinction in principle between such interpretive factors and "facts",
even if in practice "facts" meet us only via our interpretive
categories. Otherwise, we are not likely to make any progress in a
social understanding of "facts", but risk devolving into mutually
exclusionary private worlds of discourse. I am unrepentent about seeing
thought and discourse as heavily concerned with generating and enhancing
inter-personal relationships, and so I see discourse as having a
responsibility to try to make "meaning" trans-personal. I thus suppose
that I cannot accept the rejection by so-called "radical post-modernism"
of trans-personal narratives.
I quite agree also that Josephus does not use "prophet" as a
label for the Baptist. I assume that Greg and others may be aware of the
extreme reserve and curiously selective way Josephus uses "prophet" and
allied categories, and that Josephus' rhetoric is heavily conditioned by
the audience for whom he is writing (thus, Jewish freedom fighters
against Rome are regularly labeled "brigands"). In any case, J.'s
Baptist is a figure who is able to sway the crowds with his powerful
speaking, and calls his fellow Jews to radical religious reformation--all
of which perfectly fits what a prophet might hope to accomplish. But
this is of course not the time to settle either J.'s rhetorical
strategies or the figure of the Baptist. I am aware of attempts to play
off Josephus against the Gospels picture of John as prophet, and I find
them technically interesting exercises that ultimately are naive in their
own way in use of Josephus. I am also aware of course that the Gospels
relate the Baptist and Jesus differently, but I think basic
historical-critical principles have adequately deal with that.
So, thanks again to Greg for his clarification, which is all that
we can perhaps expect via this medium. I think the issues too complex to
hope for persuasion in this brief format.
Cheers. Larry Hurtado, Religion, Univ. of Manitoba
------------------------------
From: "Larry W. Hurtado" <hurtado@cc.umanitoba.ca>
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 16:30:15 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Re: Lexical Contacts and Cluster Analysis
On Wed, 15 Mar 1995, Carl W Conrad wrote:
> I've just
> come across a book by David Peabody entitled _Mark as Composer_ (New
> Gospel Studies 1), Mercer Press, 1987. It is an attempt to isolate Marcan
> phraseology that may be considered redactional, a distinct problem that
> anyone who attempts to do redaction criticism of Mark must face, but just
> as much for Farmer-Griesbach advocates who would see Mark as redaction of
> Mt & Lk. Has anyone else seen this? Larry Hurtado? Has it been reviewed?
> It is not a statistical analysis in the sense of compiling ratios, but
> its tables of recurrent usage of the same or similar phraseology to
> perform certain compositional functions are pretty impressive where the
> phrases recur over and over and over again.
I consulted the book several years ago in preparing an article on (then)
recent Markan studies. I remember Peabody's work as using some good
information with assumptions, starting points and frames that I found
unpersuasive. But it is a useful exercise in trying to explain Mark as a
redaction of Mt/Lk.
Larry Hurtado, Religion, Univ. of Manitoba
------------------------------
From: "Philip L. Graber" <pgraber@emory.edu>
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 19:54:56 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Nida
> <<You may obtain Louw & Nida on disk from Silver Mt Software (John Baima on
> this list).>>
> Mac? Is this the domain lexicon or somrthing else. CD Rom?
Not for Mac, Windows only. This is the Louw & Nida Lexicon based on
semantic domains. It uses the Folio Infobase software, and is very easy to
get around in. You can get it as a separate module to run by itself, or it
can be accessed from inside Bible Windows. The Louw & Nida, as well as the
Intermediate Liddell & Scott (also in Folio Infobase), come on the CDROM
version of Bible Windows (you can get them separately on floppies to
install to a hard drive).
Philip Graber Graduate Division of Religion
Graduate Student in New Testament 211 Bishops Hall, Emory University
pgraber@emory.edu Atlanta, GA 30322 USA
------------------------------
From: Chalidze@aol.com
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 19:56:03 -0500
Subject: unsub
unsubscribe b-greek
------------------------------
From: George Baloglou <baloglou@oswego.oswego.edu>
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 20:20:33 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Question on homothumadon
On Tue, 14 Mar 1995, Carl W Conrad wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Mar 1995, Doug Hanley wrote:
>
> > I have a question on homothumadon (strongs#3661) and one of it's root words
> > thumos (Str# 2372).
> > It is used 12 times in the NT, 10 of which are in Acts.
> > How strongly is the passion, rushing etc. portrayed by thumos?
> > What Classical meanings did it portray (thumos) and the compound (or was
> > Homothumadon a word unique to Christian usage?)
>
> [deleted]
>
> with reasonable probability (I think) that the word's original sense was
> "blood-soul," and that it referred to the thick, liquefied , hot spirit
> that whirls in the chest and would break loose from the chest if it were
> not contained (the Latin equivalent seems to be the m. pl.
> ANIMI--"spirits"). Etymologically the word is cognate (indeed equivalent
> formally) to the Latin word for "smoke," FUMUS, and it is cognate to
> Greek words for "sacrifice" THUW (vb) and its many cognates: i.e.
> sacrifice is to send the hot smoking essence of the sacrificial beast up
> to the heavens for the enjoyment of the gods. But, moving on from
>
> [deleted]
>
:-) Although a native speaker of Greek, I had never thought of such
connections as that between, say, "THUMOS" ("anger" in *modern* Greek) and
"THUMIAMA" ("incence" (?) burnt in Greek Orthodox churhes); even funnier,
this connection is far more obvious in English, thanks to the double meaning
of "incense"! By the way: "THUMIAMA" is both an ancient and a modern Greek
word, but I suspect that it is associated strictly with non-Christian
practices when (and if) it shows up in the New Testement (?)
>
> As for the word HOMOTHUMADON, I don't THINK it is that common in
> pre-Hellenistic Greek, but the reference works, or a quick run of the TLG
> disk through a search program could settle that question quickly.
>
It is not that common in modern Greek, either, having given way to
"HOMOFWNWS": "in a single voice" rather than "in a single mood" :-)
> 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
>
George Baloglou
"Memory of my people, your name is Pindos, your name is Athos" ("AXION ESTI")
"MNHMH TOU LAOU MOU, SE LENE PINDO, SE LENE ATHW" [Odysseas Elytis]
------------------------------
From: "James D. Ernest" <ernest@mv.mv.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 21:27:02 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Lex. Cont. and Cl. Analysis-brf. biblio?
I don't have the time to follow this thread now but
would appreciate a reference or two to print sources
that would orient me to the methods under discussion
when I get time later to get back to it.
- -----------------------------------------------------------------
James D. Ernest Department of Theology
Manchester, New Hampshire, USA Boston College
Internet: ernest@mv.mv.com Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
------------------------------
From: "Larry W. Hurtado" <hurtado@cc.umanitoba.ca>
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 11:33:42 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Re: Lexical Contacts and Cluster Analysis
Question from the peanut galary: Has anyone tried the sort of linguistic
analyses being tested on Paul on other texts as "controls", e.g.,
Josephus' works? J. wrote two accounts that overlap in part--Jewish War
and Antiquities of the Jews--and I am aware that the contents of
overlapping narratives of the same events do not fully agree (i.e., J.
tells the same event differently often). But has anyone studied J.'s
linguistic data? J. tells us that he use assistants, particularly in
polishing his Greek style.
Larry Hurtado, Religion, Univ. of Manitoba
------------------------------
End of b-greek-digest V1 #616
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