Word order in Lk. 4:18-19

Stephen Hughes
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Re: Word order in Lk. 4:18-19

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Well, we could leave it at that. I was just wondering about the list of infinitives without conjunctions and whether χρίειν waz a single event or one that looked forward to other actions.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
RandallButh
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Joined: May 13th, 2011, 4:01 am

Re: Word order in Lk. 4:18-19

Post by RandallButh »

I was just wondering about the list of infinitives without conjunctions and whether χρίειν waz a single event or one that looked forward to other actions.
1. The lack of conjunctions in the list of infinitives is coming from the Hebrew poetry of Isaiah.
2. The χρίειν is the reason that the spirit of the Lord was upon him.
Culturally, an anointing, למשוח, is for establishing a role, to be a king, a prophet, or priest, or ultimately, the prophesied "Anointed One." The installation of someone into any of those roles looks forward to future actions, although linguistically there was no grammatical requirement to specify those actions with infinitives.

Again, it may help to go back to the original context that an audience is being asked to picture:
Jesus taught in a synagogue (in Nazareth in this context),
He quoted Isaiah 61 in Hebrew (because the Bible was read in Hebrew in the first century in a place like Nazareth)
and he jumped unexpectedly jumped to Isaiah 58 in Hebrew at some point in his reading or teaching.

Now we could complicate things by speculating that what Luke has recorded for us is actually less than the full reading and teaching by Jesus. Jesus may have gone back to Isaiah 58:5 and quoted the Hebrew of "the acceptable day of the Lord", and then jumped to 58:6 to quote the actions of what was accecptable and pleasing to the Lord. That list of accpetable actions may have explicitly cited one or more of the following:
I want you to remove the sinful chains,
to tear away the ropes of the burdensome yoke,
to set free the oppressed,
and to break every burdensome yoke.
I want you to share your food with the hungry
and to provide shelter for homeless, oppressed people.
When you see someone naked, clothe him!
Don’t turn your back on your own flesh and blood!
Then your light will shine like the sunrise;
your restoration will quickly arrive;
your godly behavior will go before you,
and the LORD’s splendor will be your rear guard.
At which point he returned to Isaiah 61 and repeated or continued in order to cite the "acceptable year of the Lord".

Maybe another fact is necessary to be understood by the modern reader today.
Isaiah 58:5 and 61:2 are the ONLY places in the Hebrew Bible where the phrase רצון ליהוה "acceptable to Yhwh" occurs.
It is the unque double occurrence in Isaiah 58 and 61 in Hebrew that provides the literary basis for the interpretation through the application of gezera shava.

This is similar to the gzera-shava linking of Deut 6:4-9 and Lev 19:18 by the lawyer (Luke 10:25ff). The phrase ואהבת "and you shall love" only occurs in Deut 6, Lev 19 twice, and Deut 11. As for Deut 11, it was included in the "shma" recitation (as explicitly discussed in Mishnah Brachot 2:2-5), and in the gospel the parable of the Good Samaritan (that follows the lawyer's "profession of faith" rather directly) deals with the question of Lev 19:18 "who is my friend" (a.k.a. "neighbor" in Greek, whom one is commanded to love) and the foreign resident of Lev 19:34 (whom one is also commanded to love). There was alot going on in the cultural context in Luke 10.
Barry Hofstetter
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Re: Word order in Lk. 4:18-19

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Asyndeton is not infrequent as a literary device in Greek literature as well.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Stephen Hughes
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Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Word order in Lk. 4:18-19

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Barry Hofstetter wrote:Asyndeton is not infrequent as a literary device in Greek literature as well.
In which genres?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Barry Hofstetter
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Joined: May 6th, 2011, 1:48 pm

Re: Word order in Lk. 4:18-19

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

All of them, but especially poetry and rhetoric.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
RandallButh
Posts: 1105
Joined: May 13th, 2011, 4:01 am

Re: Word order in Lk. 4:18-19

Post by RandallButh »

Barry Hofstetter wrote:All of them, but especially poetry and rhetoric.
Though Luke 4 and LXX 61 are hardly being influenced by Greek poetic conventions, certainly not meter. It appears a fairly word for word translation from Hebrew.
Barry Hofstetter
Posts: 2159
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 1:48 pm

Re: Word order in Lk. 4:18-19

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

My point is simply that such use would hardly sound jarring to someone who knew his Greek. It is also true that much of what has been identified as Semitic influence is attested in Greek literature and non-literary documents clearly not so influenced.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Word order in Lk. 4:18-19

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Barry Hofstetter wrote:My point is simply that such use would hardly sound jarring to someone who knew his Greek. It is also true that much of what has been identified as Semitic influence is attested in Greek literature and non-literary documents clearly not so influenced.
My initial attention was drawn to the passage because its word-order, possible clause order and asyndeta are markedly different from the surrounding text.

What sort of Greek would it stand out as? Foreign sounding, poorly constructed, oracular, non-literary or some other genre?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
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