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b-greek-digest V1 #83
b-greek-digest Saturday, 20 January 1996 Volume 01 : Number 083
In this issue:
Copy of: Qualitative QEOS in John
Female Author of Hebrews? (was Re: IEph inscr)
Re: IEph inscr help please
Re: IEph inscr help please
Re: IEph inscr help please
Re: Female Author of Hebrews? (was Re: IEph inscr)
Qualitative QEOS in John
Jesus e-debate
Re: IEph inscr help please
Carsten Thiede on Papyrus 64
VULGATE TRANS. OF GK. KATABRABEUEIN (COL 2.18)
Re: New Blass-Debrunner-Funk
Beware of reply addresses to my "Greetings" message
Apostolic Fathers' style(s)
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From: "Wes C. Williams" <71414.3647@compuserve.com>
Date: 19 Jan 96 01:05:25 EST
Subject: Copy of: Qualitative QEOS in John
Stephen,
You wrote:
>> I understand that anarthrous nouns in Greek can be used qualitatively,
but I'm having a hard time finding examples of a qualitative QEOS being
used in John (for now, I wish to avoid the question of Jn1:1).
Is Jn1:12 (TEKNA QEOU -- "children of God") such an example?
Or, what about v13 (hOI OUK EC hAIMATWN ... ALL EK QEOU EGENNHQHSAN --
"who were born not of blood ... but of God")? <<
Genitive constructions like you cite tend to be qualitative by their nature.
However, there are two examples in John's writings where he uses theos that
parallels the construction in John 1:1 (as you request, I'll avoid that for
now). The construction we seek is a predicate anarthrous nominative theos
preceeding a copulative verb. Harner (JBL 1973) says this tends to be
qualitative, although there are many examples where this is not true, as he
himself admitted.
The first is in John 8:54:
(Words in all caps indicate plural)
(Joh 8:54) It is my Father that glorifies me, he who YOU say is YOUR God;
... qeos hvmwn estin.
Although anarthrous, it has an pronomial modifier associated with it which
limits its scope down to a single member of the theos class; namely, the one God
whom the Jews claimed to worship. So, we might say that this theos refers
specifically to Jesus' Father, as he himself stated in the verse. With the
pronomial modifier, the theos here appears to be definite, although anarthrous
(once again, due largely to the restrictive pronoun).
Qualitative? To paraphrase: 'He who YOU say is one who has the character or
nature of a god;'. Perhaps. It does not appear to me to be prominent. On the
other hand, here is an argument for its qualitativeness, which I quote from
another source in a similar discussion:
Why does the Greek have the predicate in the last, equative clause at John
8:54 as an anarthrous predicate preceding its copulative? Jesus is thereby
giving emphasis to a relationship which the Jews say is true of the Father:
'You Jews say that my Father is "your God".' The Jews, then, were saying, in
effect, 'The true God is God known only among us Jews.' Jesus denied that the
Jews owned a fine relationship with his Father, the only true God: "And yet
you have not known him."
And John 10:34:
(Joh 10:34) "Is it not written in your Law, 'I said: "YOU are gods"'?
... Qeoi este
This also is a predicate nominative anarthrous theos (plural) preceeding the
copulative verb. Here it highlights more than one who belong to the theos
category. ( Of course, it was not polytheism that the Jews recognized many in
the theos category. They worshipped only one Almighty God. These other "qeoi"
were ones deserving of reverence and respect due to their position of authority.
see BAG; theos; 4 and 4a. Also Psalms 8:5 - Hebrews 2:7 where the LXX
translators translated the Hebrew elohim, or "gods", as "angels", which Paul
cited in Hebrews 2:7.).
Qualitative? To paraphrase: 'I said: "You are ones who have the character or
nature of a god?". It seems to me to have qualitative emphasis since the
statement is true in terms of authority over people.
I hope the two specific examples help.
Sincerely,
Wes Williams
------------------------------
From: Stephen C Carlson <scarlso1@osf1.gmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 01:50:33 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Female Author of Hebrews? (was Re: IEph inscr)
Kenneth Litwak wrote:
> (you know, like Prisicilla did when writing hebrews,
>according to one book I have seen)?
I know you're writing somewhat in jest, but this issue came up a few
months ago and I didn't get to make the following point:
It seems that the author of Hebrew is almost certainly a male (unless
Priscilla was concealing her identity), based upon 11:32 KAI TI ETI LEGW:
EPILEIYEI ME GAR DIHGOUMENON hO XRONOS ...., where DIHGOUMENON, referring
to the author, is masculine.
Stephen Carlson
- --
Stephen C. Carlson, George Mason University School of Law, Patent Track, 4LE
scarlso1@osf1.gmu.edu : Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs
http://osf1.gmu.edu/~scarlso1/ : chant the words. -- Shujing 2.35
------------------------------
From: Stephen C Carlson <scarlso1@osf1.gmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 03:21:19 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: IEph inscr help please
Kenneth Litwak wrote:
> I have looked through all the resources I have (GTU's library is on
>short hours in January and I can't get there) and made several educated
>guesses for what to look up iin BAGD, but I still can't seem to figuure out
>what (HNWMENH in IEph inscr. comes from. I looked under ANO- words,
>and ENO- words and ANW- words, etc. etc. Can someone please tell me
>what this is from?
For the word hHNWMENHi the -MENHi indicates it's either passive or
middle. Since participles don't carry the augment, the long vowel
at the beginning is due to reduplication of the perfect. The long
- -W- vowel before -MENHi indicates that the verb is a contract, in
either -AW, -EW, or -OW. Since the word is translated as "united"
in my Loeb, I would go with hEN ("one") + -OW (to make) or hENOW.
hENOW can be found on p. 268, col. 1 in BAGD. It means to unite
and is only found in the passive in our literature. Ignatius is
keen on words meaning unity; you will find hENWSIS "unity" and
hENOTHS "unison" too.
Stephen Carlson
- --
Stephen C. Carlson, George Mason University School of Law, Patent Track, 4LE
scarlso1@osf1.gmu.edu : Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs
http://osf1.gmu.edu/~scarlso1/ : chant the words. -- Shujing 2.35
------------------------------
From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 06:04:25 -0600
Subject: Re: IEph inscr help please
At 6:21 AM 1/18/96, Kenneth Litwak wrote:
> I have looked through all the resources I have (GTU's library is on
>short hours in January and I can't get there) and made several educated
>guesses for what to look up iin BAGD, but I still can't seem to figuure out
>what (HNWMENH in IEph inscr. comes from. I looked under ANO- words,
>and ENO- words and ANW- words, etc. etc. Can someone please tell me
>what this is from? Go ahead and reply off-line. I doubt anyone else
>cares that
>I'm having parsing problems. ems.
Stephen Carlson is certainly right that this is a MP ptc. f. of hENOW. Of
course, the rough breathing would not appear in a transcription,just as it
does not appear in papyri. -W- in a pf. pass. stem (or aor. or fut. stem,
for that matter) indicates an O-contract verb.
> I would reply briefly to Edgar Krentz's note to me and say that I
>don't think
>that all NT Greek is the same. There's clearly a difference between
>1 John and 1 Peter. What I waas trying to suggest was that 1) The Postolic
>Fathers use Greek which to me is harder relatively; and 2) one might
>have expected the AP wwriters to try to follow NT styles just as NT writers
>seemm to have been influenced by the LXX. I know that's ageneralization
>so it's
>probably flase, but you know what I mean.
But it just ain't so! Even if the earliest disciples/apostles are credited
with being uneducated fishermen (I'm not even that confident about that
story being historical), it seems probable on the surface that church
leadership in the communities of the Greco-Roman church communities were
better educated and would write a more-or-less standardized educated Greek.
I have heard many sermons
>in my time (7 days til 40 --
A mere lad! There are one or two senior citizens among us, you must realize.
yikes) and many of them have been heavily
>colored by biblical terminology and idioms. One can debate the merits of
>that culturally, but I would have expected the AP wwriters to follow
>the NT writers, especially if the Ap writers came from communities which
>received NT writings. Don't you think that if your Christian faith was
>built arouund Paul's preaching and 1-4 Corinthians (the real 1-4, not
>the pseudepigrapha) that if you wrrote a summary of the Christian faith
>it might sound Pauline (you know, like Prisicilla did when writing hebrews,
>according to one book I have seen)?
This is an affectation, I believe--preaching in a deliberately colored
language alien to that of one's congregation--unless the congregation is
altogether isolated culturally from the (urban, not rural) community in
which it is situated--or chooses to isolate itself culturally. And as for
the distinction between canonical and non-canonical writings, that's not a
matter that was settled so early as that. (I'm teaching a course this term
on conflicting religions in late antiquity, and have billed it, in part, as
a study of the conflict between religious communities within and beyond
Christianity "before it had been determined what orthodoxy was going to
be.")
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: Kenneth Litwak <kenneth@sybase.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 09:23:06 +0800
Subject: Re: IEph inscr help please
Dear Stephen,
Thanks for the help. I figured at first it was perhaps a perfect. I
knew that a participle doesn't have an augment so I looked under hHNE/O-
first and found nothing, so I guessed that maybe in this tense, an A or E
was lengthened anyway, even without the augment. If I missed a principle
here, I'd appreciate knowing what it is. Thanks.
Ken
------------------------------
From: Kenneth Litwak <kenneth@sybase.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 09:14:58 +0800
Subject: Re: Female Author of Hebrews? (was Re: IEph inscr)
Stephen Carlson wrote:
> Kenneth Litwak wrote:
> > (you know, like Prisicilla did when writing hebrews,
> >according to one book I have seen)?
>
> I know you're writing somewhat in jest, but this issue came up a few
> months ago and I didn't get to make the following point:
>
> It seems that the author of Hebrew is almost certainly a male (unless
> Priscilla was concealing her identity), based upon 11:32 KAI TI ETI LEGW:
> EPILEIYEI ME GAR DIHGOUMENON hO XRONOS ...., where DIHGOUMENON, referring
> to the author, is masculine.
>
> Stephen Carlson
> --
Yes, it is somewhat in jest, but I was rather surprised to see a book
in my college library long ago called _Priscilla: The Author of
Hebrews_. I didn't read it, unfortunately. I think, thoiugh, that if
you are looking for clues in the text of the gender of the author, it
could be suggested that the exhortation to keep the marriage bed undeflied
would have more likely come fro a woman than from a man. Note, I'm not
calling this proof by any stretch of the imagination. We might also
wonder about the anonymity of the work, thoughchp 13 seems to suggest
that the recipients know who the author is. It does certainly seem
to me, however, that women occupied a prominent enough position in
Paul's ministry and churches (and Iknow ther are lots of questions here
of interpretation) and Prisca in particular, that it seems like at
least a plausible suggestion, but I wouldn't _defend_ it because it's
not what I think. I'd go withOrigen in saying that God alone knows.
Ken Litwak
GTU
Bezerkeley, CA
------------------------------
From: "Wes C. Williams" <71414.3647@compuserve.com>
Date: 19 Jan 96 11:27:30 EST
Subject: Qualitative QEOS in John
Stephen,
>> Is Jn1:12 (TEKNA QEOU -- "children of God") such an example? <<
Children is qualitative and the predicate anarthrous nominative of "become".
"Of God" is not likely an attributive genitive (i.e. "godlike, or divine
children").
Young categorizes this as a genitive of relationship (i.e. "children, sons of
God").
>> Or, what about v13 (hOI OUK EC hAIMATWN ... ALL EK QEOU EGENNHQHSAN --
"who were born not of blood ... but of God")? <<
Likely here is genitive of source and not genitive of quality.
Sincerely,
Wes Williams
------------------------------
From: Kenneth Litwak <kenneth@sybase.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 09:34:35 +0800
Subject: Jesus e-debate
I thought this might interest some people here who aren't on Ioudaios.
Ken Litwak
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