From: Carl Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Tue Dec 12 2000 - 15:14:35 EST
> I was wondering if reading Luke 2:2 as "this earlier census happened while
> Quirinius governed Syria" is unnatural in the Greek. The Greek passage is
>
> hAUTH APOGRAFH PRWTH EGENETO hHGEMONEUONTOS THS SYRIAS KURHNIOU
>
> I've perused the archives
> (http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/archives/greek-3/msg01118.html;
> http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/archives/greek-3/msg01182.html) and have
> found that PRWTH should (can?) be associated with EGENETO to mean "first
> happened," but is it possible to associate it with APOGRAFH as "first
> census" or "earlier census?"
>
> Is it unnatural to render it as "earlier census?" There are no "current"
> or "second" or "future" censuses being referred to - does this matter?
In my opinion that WOULD be unnatural; while some have sought to
understand PRWTH as a sort of prepositional adjective with the genitive
phrase at the end in the sense "prior to Quirinius governor of Syria,"
that genitive phrase is almost certainly to be understood as a genitive
ablative indicative of the time that this census "first took place," PRWTH
being understood as a predicate adjective with adverbial force:"took place
first." I think that what you've already read in our archives probably
provides you with as much information on the passage as you're likely to
get. In previous discussions of this passage it has been noted that Dan
Wallace has an excellent and honest review of the problems associated with
this passage at
http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/luke2-2.htm
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