τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου

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Benoni E. Martin
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τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου

Post by Benoni E. Martin »

is the most common translation: "this is my body" really correct?
σῶμά is neuter, but isn't ἄρτον masculine? So if the word "this" is to refer to the bread in the sense of "this (bread) is my body" - does it really fit, although the gender is different? Or should it be translated differently, if we want to be correct?
Benoni E. Martin
MAubrey
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Re: τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου

Post by MAubrey »

Yes. It's correct.

ἄρτος doesn't occur in the sentence, so it's gender isn't relevant here. What matters for the gender of τοῦτο is that as the predicate nominative should agree with the subject of the clause.
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
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Jonathan Robie
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Re: τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου

Post by Jonathan Robie »

To expand on Mike's answer, look at the text:
Matthew 26:26 wrote:Ἐσθιόντων δὲ αὐτῶν λαβὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἄρτον καὶ εὐλογήσας ἔκλασεν καὶ δοὺς τοῖς μαθηταῖς εἶπεν· Λάβετε φάγετε, τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου.
What did Jesus say? The quote starts with the capitalized letter, so here is his utterance:
Λάβετε φάγετε, τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου.
τοῦτό is neuter. τὸ σῶμά is neuter. Similarly:
Matthew 26:27 wrote:καὶ λαβὼν ποτήριον καὶ εὐχαριστήσας ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς λέγων· Πίετε ἐξ αὐτοῦ πάντες, τοῦτο γάρ ἐστιν τὸ αἷμά μου τῆς διαθήκης τὸ περὶ πολλῶν ἐκχυννόμενον εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν·
References can refer to an antecedent (anaphoric reference) or to something that follows (cataphoric). Here's another example of cataphoric reference:

Καὶ ἔστιν αὕτη ἡ ἀγγελία ἣν ἀκηκόαμεν ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀναγγέλλομεν ὑμῖν, ὅτι ὁ θεὸς φῶς ἐστιν καὶ σκοτία ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν οὐδεμία.

αὕτη refers to ἡ ἀγγελία.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
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Benoni E. Martin
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Re: τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου

Post by Benoni E. Martin »

thanks again for your replies.
I continued to think about this, and I ask you to please translate this for me, - it's not written literally in this way, but I believe it would help on the way to better understanding of our original verse; How would you, please, translate this:
ἐσθιόντων δὲ αὐτῶν λαβῶν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἄρτον καὶ εὐλογήσας ἔκλασεν καὶ δοὺς τοῖς μαθηταῖς εἶπεν· λάβετε φάγετε, ὅδε ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου.
Thank-you!
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Re: τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Did you mean to use οὗτος?

Here is a set of sentences referring to objects of all three cases. In each set, τί ἐστιν τοῦτο; is neuter because it does not presume an answer of any particular gender. See if these little dialogues help you understand the usage in the passage.

τί ἐστιν τοῦτο;
οὗτος ἐστιν ὁ λίθος.
οὗτος ἐστιν ὁ λίθος σου;
ναί, οὗτος ἐστιν ὁ λίθος μου.

τί ἐστιν τοῦτο;
τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ ποτήριον.
τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ ποτήριον σου;
ναί, τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ ποτήριον μου.

τί ἐστιν τοῦτο;
αὕτη ἐστιν ἡ ἐπιστολή.
αὕτη ἐστιν ἡ ἐπιστολή σου;
ναί, αὕτη ἐστιν ἡ ἐπιστολή μου.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Shirley Rollinson
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Re: τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου

Post by Shirley Rollinson »

Benoni E. Martin wrote: August 27th, 2017, 12:44 pm thanks again for your replies.
I continued to think about this, and I ask you to please translate this for me, - it's not written literally in this way, but I believe it would help on the way to better understanding of our original verse; How would you, please, translate this:
ἐσθιόντων δὲ αὐτῶν λαβῶν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἄρτον καὶ εὐλογήσας ἔκλασεν καὶ δοὺς τοῖς μαθηταῖς εἶπεν· λάβετε φάγετε, ὅδε ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου.
Thank-you!
It's a good sentence for working with participles (present and aorist) and with the Genitive Absolute. To refresh the memory - present participles refer to an action going on at the time of the main verb; aorist participles refer to an action that has been completed before the time of the main verb.
Let's start with the "main verbs" (Indicatives) - ἔκλασεν (he broke), εἶπεν (he said), ἐστιν (is)
ὁ Ἰησοῦς is the subject of both ἔκλασεν and εἶπεν - so Jesus took something, and said something.
ὅ is the subject of ἐστιν (the δε of ὅδε doesn't need to be translated - it's "like" the California "like") "ὅδε ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου" gives us simply "This is my body"
λάβετε and φάγετε are imperatives "take, eat"
So what Jesus said is fairly straightforward. It's the timing of the rest of the actions that may be getting confused. And the sentence beginning with a Genitive Absolute makes it look more complicated than it is. The key is that αὐτῶν is Genitive - so "they" are neither the subject nor the object of the sentence. ἐσθιόντων δὲ αὐτῶν "them eating" ἐσθιόντων is a present participle, so implies something going on at the same time as ἔκλασεν i.e. "while they were eating" Jesus broke something.
λαβῶν and εὐλογήσας are both Aorist participles, so "having taken" and "having given thanks" occurred before ἔκλασεν
So we get "While they were eating, Jesus (having taken bread and having given thanks) broke (the bread)" - Greek is logical - he had to take it before he could break it :-)
δοὺς is a present participle, "Giving" - occurring at the same time as εἶπεν -
So we get "Giving (the bread) to the disciples, he said . . ."
English doesn't use participles in exactly the same way, so we have to use the rather clunky "having done something", or else some other construction, eg "after he had done something, he did something else"
Hope this helps
Shirley Rollinson
RandallButh
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Re: τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου

Post by RandallButh »

It helps to repeat the aorist forms more than once and then to summarize with the continuative:

δοῦναι δοῦναι δοῦναι --- διδόναι

to give, to give to give --- to be giving



δοὐς, δούς, δούς ––– διδούς

having given, given, given --- be giving
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Re: τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Shirley Rollinson wrote: August 28th, 2017, 8:03 pm ὅ is the subject of ἐστιν (the δε of ὅδε doesn't need to be translated - it's "like" the California "like") "ὅδε ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου" gives us simply "This is my body"
The δε feels off to me in this context - wouldn't it be more likely to say ὅ ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου, if were written this way?
Shirley Rollinson wrote: August 28th, 2017, 8:03 pm It's a good sentence for working with participles (present and aorist) and with the Genitive Absolute.
True. And you explained this well.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
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Re: τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου

Post by RandallButh »

True. And you explained this well.
except that δούς is an aorist, too.
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Re: τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου

Post by Jonathan Robie »

RandallButh wrote: August 29th, 2017, 10:07 am
True. And you explained this well.
except that δούς is an aorist, too.
Ooops, I hadn't notice that in her writeup. Nice catch.
RandallButh wrote: August 29th, 2017, 6:09 am It helps to repeat the aorist forms more than once and then to summarize with the continuative:

δοῦναι δοῦναι δοῦναι --- διδόναι
to give, to give to give --- to be giving

δοὐς, δούς, δούς ––– διδούς
having given, given, given --- be giving
That does seem helpful.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
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