John 20:1 Complementary Participle

Forum rules
Please quote the Greek text you are discussing directly in your post if it is reasonably short - do not ask people to look it up. This is not a beginner's forum, competence in Greek is assumed.
Post Reply
Stephen Carlson
Posts: 3351
Joined: May 11th, 2011, 10:51 am
Location: Melbourne
Contact:

John 20:1 Complementary Participle

Post by Stephen Carlson »

John 20:1 wrote:καὶ βλέπει τὸν λίθον ἠρμένον ἐκ τοῦ μνημείου.
Complementary participles with verbs of perception can be either in indirect discourse (e.g., NRSV, "and [she] saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb") or not (e.g., NASB, "and [she] saw the stone already taken away from the tomb"). BDAG under βλέπω favors the former interpretation (indirect discourse), but is there any way to decide between the two interpretations?

(NB: it makes a slight semantic difference for the indirect discourse interpretation does not require actually seeing the stone. It could have been completely removed.)
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
cwconrad
Posts: 2112
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:52 pm
Location: Burnsville, NC 28714
Contact:

Re: John 20:1 Complementary Participle

Post by cwconrad »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
John 20:1 wrote:καὶ βλέπει τὸν λίθον ἠρμένον ἐκ τοῦ μνημείου.
Complementary participles with verbs of perception can be either in indirect discourse (e.g., NRSV, "and [she] saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb") or not (e.g., NASB, "and [she] saw the stone already taken away from the tomb"). BDAG under βλέπω favors the former interpretation (indirect discourse), but is there any way to decide between the two interpretations?

(NB: it makes a slight semantic difference for the indirect discourse interpretation does not require actually seeing the stone. It could have been completely removed.)
"could have been" -- yes, but is that really very likely?

I'm reminded of Mark 9:1 Καὶ ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς· ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι εἰσίν τινες ὧδε τῶν ἑστηκότων οἵτινες οὐ μὴ γεύσωνται θανάτου ἕως ἂν ἴδωσιν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐληλυθυῖαν ἐν δυνάμει

where Mark's parallels are significantly different:

Mt 16:28 ... ἕως ἂν ἴδωσιν τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐρχόμενον ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ αὐτοῦ.

Lk 9:27 ... ἕως ἂν ἴδωσιν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ.

Luke's formulation, of course, is no longer a combination of accusative + participle, so there's no question of an indirect statement, but one may ask the question about the Marcan and the Matthaean expressions (whether either or both is an indirect statement or a simple case of a participle qualifying the object of a verb of perception.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Stephen Carlson
Posts: 3351
Joined: May 11th, 2011, 10:51 am
Location: Melbourne
Contact:

Re: John 20:1 Complementary Participle

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Thanks for those examples, Carl. I'm inclined to view the Mark example as an indirect statement, because of the perfect participle. Matthew's seems ambiguous.

There are some other examples of the construction in John 20. For example, v.5 βλέπει κείμενα τὰ ὀθόνια of the Beloved Disciple and v.6 καὶ θεωρεῖ τὰ ὀθόνια κείμενα of Peter, with some interesting differences in word order, but in these cases the translation do not construe it as an indirect statement..
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
David Lim
Posts: 901
Joined: June 6th, 2011, 6:55 am

Re: John 20:1 Complementary Participle

Post by David Lim »

Stephen Carlson wrote:I'm inclined to view the Mark example as an indirect statement, because of the perfect participle. Matthew's seems ambiguous.

There are some other examples of the construction in John 20. For example, v.5 βλέπει κείμενα τὰ ὀθόνια of the Beloved Disciple and v.6 καὶ θεωρεῖ τὰ ὀθόνια κείμενα of Peter, with some interesting differences in word order, but in these cases the translation do not construe it as an indirect statement..
Doesn't the perfect participle just describe the noun at the time that "they shall see", emphasizing the completion of the event, whereas the present participle describes what the noun is "doing" or what "state" the noun is in at that time of perception?
δαυιδ λιμ
Post Reply

Return to “New Testament”