Re: Double Negatives

From: Steven Craig Miller (scmiller@www.plantnet.com)
Date: Fri Nov 19 1999 - 12:23:18 EST


<x-flowed>To: David Miller,

<< Upon re-reading Morris, I found, to my chagrin, that I had indeed
misunderstood his double negatives. I must have been in a bit of a fog
when I read him the first time. Morris does in fact agree with everyone
else that Rom 10:19 should be answered in the affirmative. I am not sure
what I am doing studying Greek, when I can't even read English! >>

IMO the issue is not so simple that confusion on this issue should be
thought to be abnormal. For example, in BAGD we find:

<< In cases like Ro 10:18f; 1 Cor 9:4f MH is an interrog. word and OU
negates the verb. The double negative causes one to expect an affirmative
answer >> (517).

But A.T. Robertson writes:

<< So Ro. 10:18, MH OUK HKOUSAN; We may render it 'Did they fail to hear?'
expecting the answer 'No' >> (1174).

How does "no" become "an affirmative answer"? <g>

-Steven Craig Miller
Alton, Illinois (USA)
scmiller@www.plantnet.com

"... while steering clear of the Scylla of credulity one must be wary of
the Charybdis of undue skepticism" (Frederick W. Danker, "A Century of
Greco-Roman Philology," 146).

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