From: Alex / Ali (alexali@surf.net.au)
Date: Wed Dec 13 2000 - 08:27:31 EST
Iver Larsen wrote concerning EPEI in Romans 3:6 and GAR.
Iver, I haven't time to do more than adumbrate a couple of matters.
Carl wrote,
>> I think that these rhetorical questions are in fact very much like that
in
>> Romans 3:6 (MH GENOITO: EPEI PWS KRINEI hO QEOS TON KOSMON?) and that
Paul
>> COULD just as well have written MH GENOITO: PWS GAR KRINEI hO QEOS TON
>> KOSMON?
To this you replied,
>But the fact remains that Paul never did write PWS GAR. He used GAR 398
times
>and PWS 27 times, but never together. In the whole NT (UBS text) GAR occurs
1041
>times and PWS 117, but only once do the two occur together - somewhat by
>coincidence, and that is in Acts 8:31. Philip has just asked the Ethiopian
>whether he understood what he was reading. The expected answer is no, and
the
>Ethiopian knows that Philip expects him not to be able to understand it.
This
>implied "no" is then explained - indicated by GAR - through another
question
>"How can I unless someone guides me?" To translate this GAR by "then" as
some
>interlinear versions do would be a misunderstanding. Even the KJV does not
>translate GAR here, and rightly so. The meaning is carried in English by
>context.
The statistics are interesting, but I'm not sure what you mean by saying
that the one collocation of PWS GAR occurs "somewhat by coincidence"; the
combination does occur elsewhere (outside the NT), and is remarked on by
Denniston (page 86) who observes that it "confirms a negative statement".
This in fact agrees with your explication of the Acts 8:31 text, with the
qualification that in this case the negative is, as you explain, implicit.
But is that so different from the Romans 3 context, where Paul is saying
that God is not unjust (with the qualification here that he says this
through a rhetorical question, MH ADIKOS hO QEOS hO EPIFERWN THN ORGHN?
3:5)? Although Carl's rewording using PWS GAR is hypothetical, I don't see
it as inappropriate to the context, but rather as fitting within the
category observed and commented upon by Denniston.
Again, Carl:
> Whether or not it is etymologically valid, I have come to understand the
> way GAR works most adequately by seeing it as derivative from an original
> enclitic, GE that follows upon a preceding word to underscore its
> importance + an ARA which itself has a broad range of meanings, one
> significant one being to mark a conclusion being drawn (= "then," "in that
> case"), the combination yielding the linkage, "Yes indeed, because ..."
And
> particularly when GAR follows upon an interrogative word (such as TIS in 1
> Cor 2:11 or TIS in 1 Cor 2:15), its sense seems to me to be "in that case"
> or "if that's the case."
And your response,
>ARA and GE do occur together in the NT four times. But the order is
invariably
>ARA+GE. The hypothesis that GAR should be a contraction of GE+ARA does not
have
>any linguistic basis (why would the final "a" be dropped, if that was the
>case?), and therefore cannot be used to assist in deriving or describing
the
>meaning or function of GAR.
I cannot comment on this from a linguistic standpoint, but note that
Denniston says, "The derivation of GAR from GE and AR, though occasionally
challenged (as, e.g. by H. Weber in Phil.Rundsch. iv 1078), has been pretty
generally accepted by scholars." He says, "There appears little reason to
doubt this etymology," but with that honesty that was alluded to in Carl's
post of 4th November, he does indicate a couple of points that could be
marshalled against this view.
Best wishes,
Alex Hopkins (Melbourne, Australia)
---
B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [jwrobie@mindspring.com]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:36:44 EDT