From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Sep 23 1999 - 07:03:53 EDT
At 12:38 PM +0200 9/23/99, Johann Oaklands wrote:
>Thank you Carl for you excellent reply to my question. However, there is
>still something in there that I need clarified, if I might push the question
>a little further. Just for the purpose of illustration I'll refer to uses
>of KAQARISQHSETAI. For example in the LXX Lev 12:8 reads:
>KAI EXILASETAI PERI AUTHS hO hIEREUS KAI KAQARISQHSETAI.
>
>Here it seems that the person atoned for will not start in on a cleansing
>process, but is in fact already clean. Is that what KAQARISQHSETAI is
>saying? In other words, only before the atonement can it be said that the
>cleansing is future, for after the atonement, the cleansing would have been
>accomplished.
>
>Similarly in Lev 15:28
>
>KAI EXARIQMHSETAI AUTHi hEPTA hHMERAS KAI META TAUTA KAQARISQHSETAI.
>
>Do we translate "after that she will begin to be clean" or "after that she
>will be clean"?
>
>Just one more, this time from Numbers 31:23
>
>PAN PRAGMA hO DIELEUSETAI EN PURI KAI KAQARISQHSETAI.
>
>Is this saying the same as the NRSV "everything that can withstand fire,
>shall be passed through fire, and it shall be clean"? I take that
>KAQARISQHSETAI to indicate that once the object has been passed through
>fire it is
>already clean rather than that it will begin to become clean.
>
>In other words, is this how the future passive should always function?
>
>I would be most grateful for any help with these. Thank you. John
Quite frankly, I think that the Greek future passive here probably is being
used to translate a Hebrew imperfect=future; I don't know the Hebrew well
enough, but I do know that it doesn't have anything like the Greek future
perfect; the examples you cite look to me like they are intended to be
future statives. If the intended meaning is "will be clean," I personally
think that KAQAROS ESTAI would have been better Greek--or else
KEKAQARISMENOS ESTAI. This is an interesting question; I was answering only
with regard to the kind of sense that a Greek future passive has when used
traditionally by a native speaker/writer of Greek. Things are different
when Greek is being used to carry over conceptions that the original
language expresses differently or not at all. Now I'm minded to take a look
at the extent to which future perfects ARE used in the LXX.
Are these translations you're citing translations from the Hebrew or
specifically translations from the Greek LXX text? It will, I think, make a
big difference in these texts.
Regards, c
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
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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