From: David L. Moore (dvdmoore@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Sun Jul 05 1998 - 17:14:48 EDT
At 11:18 AM 7/5/98 +0000, clayton stirling bartholomew wrote:
>I think that there is certainly merit in your observations. My original post
>was kind of confusing because I was really raising several questions rather
>than one. I started out asking a question about how to read Acts 12:19 and
>ended up exploring methodology in lexical semantics. Perhaps I can clarify
>things a little now.
>
>David L. Moore wrote:
>
>>It doesn't seem, however, APACQHNAI
>> has been left ambiguous in Acts 12:19.
>
>Louw and Nida and F.F. Bruce both consider APAGW ambiguous in this context. L
>& N list APAGW in Acts 12:19 under two domains, 20:65 "to kill, to execute"
>and 56:38 "Lead off to punishment". F.F. Bruce (Acts, 1954 NICNT, p253 n.
17)
>says that "to be put to death" is a translation of the reading APOKTANQHNAI
>from Codex Bezae. He goes on to point out that APAGW is ambiguous in this
>context and probably means "led away to punishment."
Bruce's comments which Clayton mentions include the following: "Cod. D
(the chief Western witness) says 'to be put to death' (APOKTANQHNAI); this
agrees with the idiomatic Attic use of APAGW in the sense of leading off to
execution (cf. Luke 23:26). This meaning is more likely in the present
context than the Hellenistic meaning 'arrest" or "lead off to prison.'" I
would think that the "This meaning" of the final sentence has taken the
closest referent.
Another work by Bruce which concentrates on the Greek text of Acts says
that APACQHNAI here is probably to be taken "in the Attic sense, 'to be led
away to execution,' as in Lk. xxiii. 26." Why he uses "sent them off to be
punished" in the text of the NICNT commentary, I don't understand, since it
conflicts with his opinion expressed in the note on the same page and also
conflicts with his comments in the Greek-text commentary. It looks as
though Lowe and Nida simply waffle on the meaning of APAGW in Acts 12:19,
but APAGW *is* unequivocally included as representative of the semantic
domain "to kill, to execute." So the usage does not seem to be in question
for them, but the specific instance is.
On Bruce's handling of this word in Acts 12:19 in his Greek-text
comentary: his comments apparently depend on Moulton and Milligan (s.v.)
who point out, that the word is found four times in P Oxy. I:33 of one
being led off to death and state that Lk 23:26 with the Vulgate _duci_ and
the gloss APOKTANQHNAI in D* are probably decisive for the Attic meaning,
"led away to death."
>>>>>>
> The word is well attested in this sense (see BAGD s.v. APAGW, 2, c).
Note
>especially the use of the word with no addition, a section which includes
>Luke 23:26; Jn. 19:16 (in MS Aleph among others), and the verse we are
>discussing. So we shouldn't be afraid to understand "led away [to be
>executed]" here.
>>>>>>>
>
>I have noted these texts. In Luke 23:26 APAGW does not mean execute
(IMHO), it
>is used in a context where execution is about to take place but the SENSE of
>APAGW does not included the semantic component "to what" in this passage any
>more than it does in Acts 12:19. The context of Luke 23:26 leaves absolutely
>no doubt about where Jesus was being taken. But my argument has to do with
the
>SENSE of APAGW not the interpretation of the whole passage.
>
>Let me illustrate this point from an English example. In Truman Capote's "In
>Cold Blood", Perry and Dick are on death row in Leavenworth for a long time.
>In the language of Leavenworth, particularly death row, when a man was
>executed he had "gone to the corner." Now if someone were to ask Perry what
>had happened to Dick and he said "gone to the corner". It would be clear that
>Dick had been executed. But the word "gone" does not contain the semantic
>component "to where" or "to what". The word "gone" is used with it's normal
>SENSE, but the situational context and the linguistic context both provide
the
>information that Dick was executed.
But, what I am saying is that "take away to execution" is a legitimate
meaning of this verb when used unaccompanied by any modifiying phrase, as
is the case in Acts 12:19.
Another reason for understanding "taken away to be executed" here is that
the other common Koine usage of this verb in the context of authoritative,
official action is the meaning "arrest" (Moulton & Milligan, s.v.). But
this latter meaning does not fit the context, since the guards are
obviously already in custody.
>This example from "In Cold Blood" is parallel to the use of APAGW in Luke
>23:26. It is not parallel to the use of APAGW in Acts 12:19 where some real
>ambiguity exists. In both of these contexts there is no reason to add the
>semantic component "to what" or "to where" to the SENSE of APAGW.
See comment directly above.
>This is an exploration of the application of lexical semantic theory. I am
>trying to explore the boundary between the SENSE of a lexeme and the USE of
>the lexeme in a particular context. Since it is an exploration all the
>statements made here are quite tentative (even if the tone does not indicate
>such).
It seems to me that our basic difference is in whether APAGW by itself may
mean "take away to execution." The lexicons (including Lowe & Nida)
indicate that it may. The context of the passage points in that direction,
so I see no reason to shy away from translating APAGW in that sense here.
Regards,
David Moore
David L. Moore
Miami, Florida, USA
E-mail: dvdmoore@ix.netcom.com
Home Page: http://members.aol.com/dvdmoore
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