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b-greek-digest V1 #841
b-greek-digest Wednesday, 30 August 1995 Volume 01 : Number 841
In this issue:
Re: BG: Synoptic Apocalypse
Re: BG: Synoptic Apocalypse
Greek Word Processing: Mac/I
Re: WP or WFW vs. Nota Bene
Galatians 1:10
os/2
IE Q? Latin, Greek verb theme vowels
Re: Pocket Gr. NT
LXX text variation in difficulty
Unsubscribe me please...
BBG index now available
Hebrew font
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 05:15:07 -0500
Subject: Re: BG: Synoptic Apocalypse
At 7:52 PM 8/28/95, Jan.Haugland@uib.no wrote:
>Carl W. Conrad said:
>> I was going just to let this pass but I couldn't. While I agree that the
>> Synoptic gospels all have Jesus-sayings indicating that the "Coming" of the
>> Son of Man will take place within the lifetimes of those hearing Jesus,
>
>YES! Thank you for pointing this out. It's the crucial point, and I will come
>back to this. I believe that the gospels actually reflect true, authentic oral
>statements made by Jesus to the disciples. These statements were well known
>among all Christians even before a single book of the NT was written. The
>underlying Christian faith in the imminent parousia was built on these
>statements, and the earliest books -- the Pauline letters -- simply refer to a
>faith that was already present.
I am less confident that in these passages the gospel do in fact reflect
"true, authentic oral statements made by Jesus to the disciples, but I
grant that the statements are there in each of the three synoptics. There
are some significant differences in the wording of the versions in the
three gospels, but whatever it is that they are to see, in each there is
asserted that "there are some standing here who will not taste death before
they see ..." Nevertheless, these statements, crucial as they may be, do
not by any means constitute the whole teaching of any one of the synoptic
gospels. I think it comes closest to the teaching of Mark's gospel, but I
think there are clear indications of a "delayed Parousia" in Matthew and
Luke.
>> think it is a gross overstatement to say that this is the teaching of "the
>> whole NT,"
>
>It is of course a subjective statement with a certain lack of precision, but I
>stand by it.
>
>We have the synoptics stating this clearly. We agree so far.
You overstate the point of agreement, as I have already indicated.
>The Gospel of John has the same message, in places like Jn16:16: "A little
>while, and you will see me no more; again a little while, and you will see me."
>In Jn21:22 we also find that based on Jesus statements, the discipled had
>(mistakenly) assumed that Jesus had *guaranteed* that John would live to see
>the parousia. John corrects this, but this is evidence that they expected the
>coming within one generation.
My own reading of the gospel of John is that the Parousia of Jesus is
presented as occurring fundamentally on the day of Easter,and that this is
the dominant eschatology of John's gospel,but there are some passages in
John that seem to point to a more distant futuristic consummation also.
>In Acts 2:16, Peter states that they were living *in the last days.* Later, in
>Acts 17:31, we see most translations say merely that Jesus "will judge" the
>world (oikomene). "He will judge" is "mellei krinein," and the Greek experts
>here should have no difficulty observing that there is a shade of urgency
>here:
>"he is about to judge," or "will soon judge."
I'd say that in this passage in Acts (2) we have reference to early church
teaching that in the death and resurrection of Jesus the Age-to-come has
begun but that it runs and will continue to run simultaneously with the
present World-Age until a future Parousia at some indefinite point. There
can be no doubt that in the early church this was thought to be in the
reasonably near future.
I won't try to argue the case about Paul. It is quite evident that he looks
forward to an early return of Jesus. I would say, however, that if (as I
think) Romans is his most mature letter, his statement at the end of
chapter 8 is less bound to an eschatological timetable such as that offered
in 1 Cor 15 and is couched more in simple confidence in God's power to
consummate his promises to believers.
>I don't have to use more arguments to show that the epistles of Paul has the
>*imminent* Parousia all over. The battle cry for the Christian, persecuted and
>suffering under the evil of this world, was "The Lord is at hand." (Php4:5)
>
>I should hardly need to point out the obvious fact that in no language spoken
>by men, can an expression like this -- "at hand" -- indicate a period of 1900
>years or more.
I don't dispute this.
>> and I think there is considerable evidence indicating that in
>> Matthew and Luke the "Coming" is conceived as distanced from the
>> destruction of the temple and Jerusalem by an indefinite period of time,
>> one that in Luke appears to be rather lengthy, in fact.
>
>You will have to point this out, for I have in a quite careful examination of
>these accounts come to the opposite conclusion.
The text in Luke I had in mind specifically is 21:20-24. It begins with a
sketch of Jerusalem under siege which to my mind is a vaticinium ex eventu
if there ever was one, though I realize not everyone will agree. I think
21:20 is an indication that Luke was written AFTER the destruction of
Jersualem. 21:24 speaks of the prisoners of war taken from Jerusalem and
then says that Jerusalem ESTAI PATOUMENH hUPO EQNWN, AXRI hOU PLHWQWSIN
KAIROI EQNWN. It is this last phrase in particular that makes me think that
Luke implies an extensive period of Gentile domination of Jerusalem before
the Parousia, which Luke's Jesus goes on to describe in the next verses.
>> So could you explain, please, what you mean by saying that 'The whole NT is
>> emphasising that the second coming would occur within the lifespan of those
>> people he were talking to. The disciples asked Jesus when the "end of the
>> age" would be. Jesus explained, and it all came to pass in 70AD?'
>
>I think I have done this, and you should find further examples in the epistles
>of John, Jude and Peter (authentic or not). The fact that I am missing some
>books in my list above is not lack of examples, but that I don't want this
>article to be too long. Let me simply conclude by referring to the Revelation
>of John, which I am certain was a message about the forthcoming destruction of
>Jerusalem:
>
> Rev 22:20 "He who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming
> soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!"
Well, some will agree on the dating of the Apocalypse. I'm not so sure. But
with regard to the other letters, I thought it was commonly held that 2
Peter makes its primary message that although the Parousia has not yet
occurred, it surely will at a time of the Lord's choosing.
We apparently read some of these texts in the same way, but differ quite
radically in the interpretation of several others. I think probably we
ought to stick to the elucidation of particular texts rather than attempt
to characterize the eschatology of the NT as a whole. The most meaningful
summation on that matter that I've ever heard is that the NT as a whole is
permeated with a conviction that in some way the New Age has indeed already
begun, but that in many important ways it awaits a future consummation yet.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
------------------------------
From: Jan.Haugland@uib.no
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 13:19:49 +0200
Subject: Re: BG: Synoptic Apocalypse
Hello David
> What does it mean that "And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles
> *until* the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." Lk 21:24b Does this not
> suggest a period of time between the destruction of Jerusalem and some
> other great event to follow?
No. There is no indication of anything *following* some end of the gentile
times. Few statements in the gospels has been subject to more speculative
interpretation (including more than a few date-theories among Adventists and
Jehovah's Witnesses) than this simple reference to gentile times succeeding the
Jewish dispensation. The gentile times would necessarily start when Jerusalem
was destroyed in 70AD. There is no mention anywhere of its end, so it doesn't
mean anything related to the "parousia."
> Also what do you make of the saying that went about among the brethren
> that John would not die? (Jn 21:23) This "saying" suggests that "If I will
> that he remain till I(Jesus) come" then he will live a very long long time
> i.e. until Christ returns. There may not have been such a strong aggreement
> about how soon the Lord's return would be.
Are you suggesting that the disciples thought John would live for centuries?
This is not a very likely explanation. Also note that John does *not* deny that
he will live until the coming, he simply says Jesus had not guaranteed it.
> Finally....do you deny the physical resurrection of the dead?
What physical resurrection? I certainly do believe in the physical resurrection
of Christ (whatever that means!), or this would be a waste of time. The
Christians excpected a rapture of both dead and alive. I believe that this all
happened when Jesus came.
Cheers,
- - Jan
- --
Real Time, adj.:
Here and now, as opposed to fake time, which only occurs there
and then.
------------------------------
From: perry.stepp@chrysalis.org
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 95 08:25:36 -0600
Subject: Greek Word Processing: Mac/I
Re. using Mac or IBM, Nota Bene or WPWin, etc.--
Technology has reached the point, has it not, that when one learns to use one
Windows word-processor one can use them all? I use WPWin exclusively at home,
but have little trouble with Word for Windows. And I've learned several
different methods of inserting inflected Greek into documents, so I'm seldom
left "high and dry," as it were.
And since I've learned how to use both DOS and Windoze, I don't have any
trouble using the Macs at school. So my two cents--and that's about what it's
worth: cast as wide a net as possible, then you'll be flexible enough to deal
with whatever situation faces you.
Perry L. Stepp, Baylor University
------------------------------
From: "Philip L. Graber" <pgraber@emory.edu>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 11:00:28 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: WP or WFW vs. Nota Bene
On Tue, 29 Aug 1995, James D. Ernest wrote:
> In my limited experience "user friendliness" appears to be inversely
> proportional to the quality of being adaptable to the user's particular
> requirements and permissive of fine-tuned customizing. At any rate,
> NB 4 is considerably more user-friendly than previous versions (without
> losing any customizability). People who don't mind lifting the hood
> and doing a bit of tinkering can make N.B. do in a single keystroke
> many things that other word processors can't do at all or can do only
> with much mouse-flagellating and icon-clicking. In general, I would
> say anyone who prefers DOS-type to Mac-type (including Windows)
> interfaces, and probably people who consider themselves to have decent
> aptitude for things like math, symbolic logic, or programming languages,
> (dare I add Greek grammar and textual criticism?) has a good chance of
> becoming a devoted N.B.
Such people would love OS/2. Incidently, N.B & OS/2 have had about the
same degree of success in the market.
BTW N.B. runs great in an OS/2 Virtual DOS Machine where it gets all the
memory it could ask for (you can configure a VDM to suit one program like
N.B. without affecting how your other software runs).
Philip Graber Graduate Division of Religion
Graduate Student in New Testament 211 Bishops Hall, Emory University
pgraber@emory.edu Atlanta, GA 30322 USA
------------------------------
From: Travis Bauer <bauer@acc.jc.edu>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 11:17:41 -35900
Subject: Galatians 1:10
Question:
I'm reading Calvin's commentary on Galatians. On verse 1:10, he
asserts that there is an assumed kata in the verse so that it should be
translated, "Do I seek to persuade according to men or God," rather
than "Do I seek to please men or God?" He states that there is often an
implied kata in situations like verse 10. It this generally accepted. If
so, how can one identify such situations?
---------------------------------------------------------------
/ Travis Bauer / I fear that the mode of my life /
/ Jamestown College / has been changed to ASCII. /
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
From: Bill <WILLARD@univscvm.csd.scarolina.edu>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 95 14:04:21 EDT
Subject: os/2
I am not getting into this argument about MAC vs PC, but I did see the OS/2
platform mentioned. I am going to give you a hyper text address for any that
might have question about OS/2. The president of Indelible-Blue grew up next
door to us in Macon Ga, and has built a sizeable business handling software
pretaining to OS/2.
http:www.indelible-blue.com/ib
------------------------------
From: Vincent DeCaen <decaen@epas.utoronto.ca>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 16:02:03 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: IE Q? Latin, Greek verb theme vowels
Mark Aronoff. 1994. Morphology by Itself: Stems and Inflectional
Classes. Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, no. 22. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
in Ch.2 he deals with Latin verbal morphology. I was curious about
the system of stem "theme vowels".
the system given is six-fold:
aa, ee, ii
0, e, i
in this description it appears that we are missing interesting generalizations.
1. with *a>0, we get a perfect parallelism long vs short.
2. with either *vX>vv or *Xv>vv we reduce the system to a,e,i
3. e and i appear to be conditioned variants; preferably *i>e to
explain the monopoly of front vowels in the system.
I am interested in the proportion in light of 3:
ee : ii :: ea : ia :: ee : iee
the latter especially suggests a semi-vowel on the stem:
-stem-i-theme-endings
Q1. can someone refer me to a good recent source in which I can
indulge my curiosity? especially in the historical dimension?
Q2. can someone explain the system of theme vowels for the Greek verb?
how does it compare if at all????
Q3. can I get a good source for the question in IE comparative
perspective? is the verbal theme vowel part of the original system???
thanks in advance,
Vince
------------------------------
From: Going2Asia@aol.com
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 16:23:39 -0400
Subject: Re: Pocket Gr. NT
I wanted to make a quick post and cast my vote for a thin-line leather text.
The part about adding in a portion for the variants isn't a bad idea. But,
like my sub-notebook to insure that it was very compact and lightweight they
made it with an external drive, so the publishers may have the same dilemma.
To insure that they keep it thin, practical, easy to carry and read, they may
not be able to do that.
Oh, and BTW, a few of you on the list have commented on the price. And, as
you have commented -- the price keeps going up. Come on guys, some of us have
to keep saving money so that we can buy Bro. Mounce's and Winberry's books. I
think that they ( a publisher) could put it together with a nice grade and
weight of paper and keep it leather bound for under $20. I'm going for the
"only $19.95" plus t and s special.
Your friend,
Rob J. Krause
Missionary 2 Singapore
------------------------------
From: Kenneth Litwak <kenneth@sybase.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 95 16:16:43 PDT
Subject: LXX text variation in difficulty
I wonder if someone could make a suggestion regarding some passages
from the LXX. I'm looking for a good cross-section of chapters, which
range from easy to tortuous (though I think I'll Job 28, where the
translators probably had to punt far too much) Greek. I've done some
work in the LXX, particularly the 4th servant song, but I've no idea
how that compares to other portions. I'd like to include both prose
and poetry, but I also don't know if what was Hebrew poetry ended up
as poetry in the LXX. If so, I'm interested in some of that as well.
Thanks in advance.
Ken Litwak
GTU
Bezerkley, CA
------------------------------
From: Bob Allisat <ab330@freenet.toronto.on.ca>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 20:28:49 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Unsubscribe me please...
Please unsubscribe me. I was
subscribed to your list by a
forged message. Also please
improve your list security so
this does not happen to me again.
Thank you...
Bob Allisat ab330@freenet.toronto.on.ca
ab330@torfree.net
------------------------------
From: Bill Mounce <billm@teknia.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 20:24:54 -0700
Subject: BBG index now available
To all,
In the fourth printing of Basics of Biblical Greek Zondervan let me add an
extra sixteen pages, and among other things I included an index and some
alternate paradigms (for you "log - os" people). You are free to download
them and distribute them to your students at no charge.
On the Macintosh the file is "index.mac" (Microsoft Word version 3). It is
not compressed.
On Windows the file is "index.zip" (Microsoft Word version 2). It is zipped.
The Greek font is included in the zipped archive. Both fonts are also
available separately in the same folder.
They are at my ftp site (on-ramp.ior.com) in the folder "usr/billm/bbg".
This is what most of you have been asking for and I hope it helps.
The graphics are done for the Macintosh version of Greek Hangman. It should
be available in a few weeks.
Bill Mounce
- -------------------------------
Teknia Software, Inc.
1306 W. Bellwood Drive
Spokane, WA 99218-2911
Internet: billm@teknia.com (preferred)
AOL: Mounce
CIS: 71540,2140 (please, only if necessary)
"It may be Greek to you, but it is life to me."
------------------------------
From: Bill Mounce <billm@teknia.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 22:09:21 -0700
Subject: Hebrew font
I just uploaded a Hebrew screen font that someone wrote for me that can be
used with FlashWorks and the Hebrew database. I have not worked with it
much, but as I recall it follows the same mapping as the Zondervan font
with macBible, but it does not have the diacriticals.
Bill Mounce
- -------------------------------
Teknia Software, Inc.
1306 W. Bellwood Drive
Spokane, WA 99218-2911
Internet: billm@teknia.com (preferred)
AOL: Mounce
CIS: 71540,2140 (please, only if necessary)
"It may be Greek to you, but it is life to me."
------------------------------
End of b-greek-digest V1 #841
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