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b-greek-digest V1 #50
b-greek-digest Monday, 18 December 1995 Volume 01 : Number 050
In this issue:
How to subscribe?
Re: Marcan Pidgin Greek
Re: Marcan Pidgin Greek
Re: Marcan Pidgin Greek
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From: MR A R CRAIG <CSRT29A@prodigy.com>
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 02:36:52 EST
Subject: How to subscribe?
I have a friend who would like to subscribe to b-greek and, although I
have been a subscriber to b-greek for quite a while now, I've forgotten
how one subscribes. Can someone give me the instructions that I can
pass on to him?
Thanks, A. Craig.
------------------------------
From: Domenico LEMBO <lembodo@ds.cised.unina.it>
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 10:43:34 -0100
Subject: Re: Marcan Pidgin Greek
>>>
Mk 2:21a. OUDEIS EPIBLHMA hRAKOUS AGNAFOU EPIRAPTEI EPI hIMATION PALAION;
21b. EI DE MH, AIREI TO PLHRWMA AP' AUTOU TO KAINON TOU PALAIOU KAI XEIRON
SXISMA GINETAI.
...........................................................
Mt 9:16a. OUDEIS DE EPIBALLEI EPIBLHMA hRAKOUS AGNAFOU EPI hIMATIWi
PALAIWi; 16b. AIREI GAR TO PLHRWMA AUTOU APO TOU hIMATIOU KAI XEIRON SXISMA
GINETAI.
==================================================================
Carl,
maybe Mark's Greek is not a literary one, but sounds not that barbarous.
For the sequence common to both Mark and Matthew, there is no problem at
all. TO PLHRWMA cannot be but subject. So your first translation is the
good one: "The patch pulls from it (Mt: from the very garment) ...". (btw,
I wonder whether a perispomenous AIREI from AIREO would not be a better
reading).
As for the Marcan sequence TO KAINON TOU PALAIOU, granted, it is not so
elegant. However, it is solid Greek: "The patch pulls from it *inasmuch as
the former is new, the latter is old*"
Do You find it so unprecedented?
Greetings
D. Lembo
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Domenico LEMBO Universita' di Napoli
lembodo@ds.cised.unina.it
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
------------------------------
From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 06:14:36 -0600
Subject: Re: Marcan Pidgin Greek
At 5:43 AM 12/17/95, Domenico LEMBO wrote:
>>>>
>Mk 2:21a. OUDEIS EPIBLHMA hRAKOUS AGNAFOU EPIRAPTEI EPI hIMATION PALAION;
>21b. EI DE MH, AIREI TO PLHRWMA AP' AUTOU TO KAINON TOU PALAIOU KAI XEIRON
>SXISMA GINETAI.
>
>...........................................................
>
>Mt 9:16a. OUDEIS DE EPIBALLEI EPIBLHMA hRAKOUS AGNAFOU EPI hIMATIWi
>PALAIWi; 16b. AIREI GAR TO PLHRWMA AUTOU APO TOU hIMATIOU KAI XEIRON SXISMA
>GINETAI.
>==================================================================
>
>
>
>Carl,
>
>maybe Mark's Greek is not a literary one, but sounds not that barbarous.
>For the sequence common to both Mark and Matthew, there is no problem at
>all. TO PLHRWMA cannot be but subject. So your first translation is the
>good one: "The patch pulls from it (Mt: from the very garment) ...". (btw,
>I wonder whether a perispomenous AIREI from AIREO would not be a better
>reading).
>As for the Marcan sequence TO KAINON TOU PALAIOU, granted, it is not so
>elegant. However, it is solid Greek: "The patch pulls from it *inasmuch as
>the former is new, the latter is old*"
>Do You find it so unprecedented?
Thanks for your response, Domenico. No, I don't think it is so much
unprecedented as it is, as you put it, "inelegant," which is what I really
meant to say with my subject-header "pidgin Greek." We have been having a
discussion on the list--from time to time--on whether Mark's Greek is
really very likely to be that of a native user of it, and different ones
among us have taken different sides on that question, which is really, of
course, not subject to proof. I have stated a couple times my very
subjective view that Mark would not pass a first-year Greek composition
class today. To be honest, I'm not sure I could, either, but I think I can
distinguish between better and worse Greek in terms of style.
While I understand the argument that Stephen Carlson attested for the
Griesbachians--that the Marcan reading of this verse could very well be
derived from the text in Matthew--and grant its plausibility, I am
nevertheless inclined to think it unlikely; I think it much more likely
that both Matthew and Luke have altered Mark's "inelegant" and tortured (my
word) word-order.
You raise an interesting secondary question about whether the verb
shouldn't be read as hAIREI perispomenon rather than AIREI paroxytone. I
don't know if you were following our most recent, rather heated, discussion
of IOUNIAN in Rom 16.7, where NA27 and UBS4 give us IOUNIAN perispomenon
but IOUNIAN paroxytone is the much more likely reading (and Metzger argues
stronly for it in the second edition of his Textual Commentary--and Fred
Danker says the new edition of BAGD will argue for reading the proper name
as a feminine form too). The question raised is whether the earliest MS
evidence really shows any accents--and of course it doesn't. The same is
true, is it not, of the verb in our passage? i.e., the uncial text AIREI
could be understood as representing either hAIREI perispomenon or AIREI
paroxytone? The aspiration mark, Ithink, would also be missing from the
beginning of the word.
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: Domenico LEMBO <lembodo@ds.cised.unina.it>
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 21:33:15 -0100
Subject: Re: Marcan Pidgin Greek
To Carl Conrad:
Actually, both in Greek and Latin, You have no doubt an excellent sense of
language. However, with "low koine" Greek we are all a bit embarrassed:
many times we cannot explain well why exactly it sounds to us so much
unequal to a "good standard". As non-"native speakers" (non-native,
non-speakers), we simply do not master Greek enough. So we have to be very
cautious about identifying the "rough side" in somebody's Greek. That was
my point. When suggesting that TO KAINON TOU PALAIOU, being not so much
unprecedented, is solid (if a tad inelegant) Greek, I was implying
something more. What we find perhaps out of standard, here and generally in
Mark's Greek, while not realizing it clearly, is not *in primis* word
order. It is something else: a lack of that inner subtle articulation that
gives breath and life to good Greek prose and largely (if not merely)
relies on use of particles. Mark's syntax is a basic one, because it is a
contracted one. This, not word order, is the "roughest side" in Mark's
Greek. Do not You think so?
As for the alternative between hAIREI perispomenon and AIREI paroxytone, it
is not fully comparable to that one between IOUNIAN perispomenon and
IOUNIAN paroxytone. In the latter case you all have been able to reach a
sound and firm conclusion, because there were some more (non-textual) data.
But in the former case we have nothing such: the choice has to be made on
purely linguistic and textual grounds. Of course, the question has very
little relevance. I posed it just *exempli gratia*. But, in this vein, one
could perhaps add something more. As You say, the manuscript tradition does
not tell really which accent or which breathing is the right one. And, on
linguistic grounds, one could maybe slightly prefer hAIREI. But there is
one more external resource to exploit. To decide correctly, one could and
should check the *Biblia patristica*, the indirect tradition of the Bible
passages; because this extends unceasingly for centuries and a reading well
attested in it should be far more reliable, even in accent and breathing
matters.
Best
D. Lembo
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Domenico LEMBO Universita' di Napoli
lembodo@ds.cised.unina.it
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
------------------------------
End of b-greek-digest V1 #50
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