From: Alex / Ali (alexali@surf.net.au)
Date: Mon Nov 19 2001 - 07:55:26 EST
Thanks again Carl for your work on the Middle/Passive.
You mentioned GINOMAI.
>This verb is, it seems to me, in its very essential meaning of "becoming"
>or "coming into being" or "being transformed into", the "Inbegriff" or
>"epitome" of the AMBIVALENCE of middle and passive voices that accounts
>for the fact that a differentiation of middle and passive form appears only
>in TWO of the ancient Greek verb's tenses--and my contention is that it is
>questionable if that differentiation is really there even in those two
>tenses.
It is a delight to me that such an apparently simple word still yields
interest, and there remains value in its consideration. I was struck by the
ambivalence of which Carl speaks when reading the first chapter of John
recently:
John 1:3 PANTA DI' AUTOU EGENETO KAI CWRIS AUTOU EGENETO OUDE hEN hO GEGONEN
John 1:10b hO KOSMOS DI' AUTOU EGENETO
These could be translated "all things came into being through him..." and
"the world came into being through him", but there is a quasi-passive feel
about them - "all things were made by him", "the world was made by him".
One of the interesting things to me is that the confirmation of seeing
GINOMAI as being legitimately rendered in a passive sense in certain
contexts is found in its occasionally being used with hUPO.
This seems to be most often found in Luke/Acts.
Luke 13:17b PAS hO OCLOS ECAIREN EPI PASIN TOIS ENDOXOIS TOIS GINOMENOIS
hUP' AUTOU
Luke 23:8b HLPIZEN TI SHMEION IDEIN hUP' AUTOU GINOMENON
Acts 12:5 hO MEN OUN PETROS ETHREITO EN TH FULAKHi. PROSEUCHi DE HN EKTENWS
GINOMENH hUPO THS EKKLHSIAS PROS TON QEON PERI AUTOU
Acts 13:32 does not have hUPO (KAI hHMEIS hUMAS EUAGGELIZOMEQA THN PROS TOUS
PATERAS EPAGGELIAN GENOMENHN) but the passive sense 'the promise that was
made to our fathers' is confirmed by the later Acts 26:6, KAI NUN EP' ELPIDI
THS EIS TOUS PATERAS hHMWN EPAGGELIAS GENOMENHS hUPO TOU QEOU hESTHKA
KRINOMENOS
Acts 20:3b GENOMENHS EPIBOULHS AUTWi hUPO TWN IOUDAIWN
GINOMAI + hUPO is also found in Paul's writings at Eph 5:12 TA GAR KRUFHi
GINOMENA hUP' AUTWN AISCRON ESTIN KAI LEGEIN.
There may be other instances, but these suffice to show that the verb could
be used with a passive sense; the aorist participles at Acts 20:3 and 26:6
are both in the 'middle' form, not the 'passive' form (which is found
elsewhere, eg Heb 4:3, 6:4).
Another verb which has both middle and passive aorist forms is APOKRINOMAI
(among the 30 mentioned in Carl's list). E.g. John 5:19 APEKRINATO OUN hO
IHSOUS KAI ELEGEN AUTOIS ... and John 6:7 APEKRIQH AUTWi hO FILIPPOS ...
But surely there is no difference in the meaning?
Regards,
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 - 15:37:12 EDT