cwconrad wrote:I suppose that one could phrase it, "She did something that was in her power" -- the implication being that there are other things that she might have done, but this is the one that she chose to do. I really think that this fits well enough within the usage set forth in BDAG, s.v. ἑχω:...
I'm wondering about the definite article in ὃ ἔσχεν ἐποίησεν - doesn't that imply one particular thing, rather than "of the things she could have done, she picked one"?
Stephen Carlson wrote:This is helpful. I suppose that Greek ἔχω + inf. and Eng. "have to" + inf. are "false friends."
I think so.
S Walch wrote:Could it be understood to mean "She did what she had [to do]", with a possible δει being behind the thinking (which only occurs 6 times in Mark - compared to the 69 uses of εχω)?
See Stephen Carlson's reply. If Greek ἔχω + inf. and Eng. "have to" + inf. can be used with the same sense, then this would be a reasonable interpretation.
Earlier, I was pondering whether this might mean something like "she did what she had been given to do", but I'm not convinced that ἔχω can carry that meaning. It would be interesting to look for phrases that combine ἔχω and ποιέω, could there be an idiom of some kind here?
S Walch wrote:If "She did what she could" was the intended meaning, surely δυναμαι would've been used by the Author rather than εχω, especially as that appears to be how the Author uses δυναμαι both in v7 and in v5.
But ἔχω does seem to be used in other places with this meaning, e.g. μὴ ἔχοντος δὲ αὐτοῦ ἀποδοῦναι - him being unable to pay.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/