From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Jan 07 2002 - 11:26:00 EST
At 9:15 AM -0500 1/7/02, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>I'm reading Ruth right now, and I can't quite wrap my synapses around this
>phrase:
>
>Ruth 2:1 KAI THi NWEMIN ANHR GNWRIMOS TWi ANDRI AUTHS
>
>Can someone please help me parse this?
THi NWEMIN is dative with an implicit HN; NWEMIN (Naomi--and how that got
to be the Greek for it, I have no idea) is indeclinable proper name. So:
"and to Naomi there was a man known to her husband." That's very literal;
decent English would have to be something like, "And there was a man known
to Naomi's husband" or "And there was a man akin to Naomi's husband ..."
The Greek here follows the Hebrew (at least the HMT) very literal and it's
not really normal Greek phraseology. What's odd in Greek but fairly
standard in Hebrew is the double possessive reference of THi NWEMIN and
AUTHS. I think more conventional Greek would have been something like KAI
HN ANHR GNWRIMOS TWi ANDRI THS NWEMIN ...
(I should just note that my Hebrew is minimalist but I think it's
sufficient to recognize this construction)
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad@ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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