From: Bill Combs (wcombs@dbts.edu)
Date: Tue Oct 06 1998 - 08:53:27 EDT
>>At 10:10 AM -0500 10/5/98, Bill Combs wrote:
>>>I notice that Accordance lists APWLLUNTW in 1 Cor 10:9 as a middle rather
>>>than a passive. I assume this is an error. Does anyone know how to contact
>>>the appropriate person to report problems like this (if it is one)?
>>>
>>>Bill Combs
>>>Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary
>>
>>Actually it reads APWLLUNTO, doesn't it (imperfect middle, not imperative
>>active)? I don't really see what the problem is here: the alternatives are
>>active APOLLUMI and middle APOLLUMAI. I don't think there's a distinct
>>passive form of the verb, even if the middle voice is understood in a
>>passive sense. The middle really means "go to ruin," "go to waste," Lat.
>>PEREO.
>
>I should add, by way of clarification, that the assumption has perhaps been
>made that APWLLUNTO in 1 Cor 10:9 is passive because it is accompanied by
>an agent construction, namely hUP' OFEWN. The agent construction does, to
>be sure, help to distinguish what is clearly as passive from the middle
>when the sense of the middle is genuinely reflexive. In fact, however, the
>agent construction is a clarifying phrase to indicate the catalyst in a
>process; the verb form itself simply indicates that the subject is involved
>in a process. My classic example of this is:
>
> hO GEWRGOS LUEI TON hIPPON "The farmer unties the horse."
> LUETAI hO hIPPOS "The horse gets loose."
> LUETAI hO hIPPOS hUPO TOU GEWRGOU "The horse gets loose, assisted
>by the
> farmer"
>
>Of course, we can translate this as "The horse is untied by the
>farmer"--but when we do that we are simply putting the substance into a
>normal English sentence; we are NOT understanding the real way the Greek
>sentence works.
>
>Some day, I hope in the not too distant future, I'll have an update on my
>essay, "Observations on Greek Voice" that I originally posted over a year
>ago to the list.
>
>Carl W. Conrad
>Department of Classics/Washington University
>One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
>Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
>cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
>WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
>
Thank you for that clarification, Carl. Actually, I had gone back and read
your post on Greek voice before I made my original post, and found it very
interesting. Please do update it. I don't have it here in front of me but,
correct me if I am wrong, you restricted true passives to those having a
passive form, such as QH. But, forgive me, I still wonder about the
classification of APWLLUNTO in 1 Cor 10:9 by Accordance. They commonly
classify present and imperfect middle forms used with hUPO as passives. It
seems inconsistent to suddenly switch to the middle with APWLLUNTO in 1 Cor
10:9.
Bill Combs
Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary
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