Luke 1:5: EGENETO's function

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moon jung
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Luke 1:5: EGENETO's function

Post by moon jung »

Ἐγένετο ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις Ἡρῴδου βασιλέως τῆς Ἰουδαίας ἱερεύς τις ὀνόματι Ζαχαρίας ἐξ ἐφημερίας Ἀβιά, καὶ γυνὴ αὐτῷ ἐκ τῶν θυγατέρων Ἀαρών, καὶ τὸ ὄνομα αὐτῆς Ἐλισάβετ*.

I wonder how Ἐγένετο functions in this sentence. EGENETO is often used to introduce a story (cf. Mark 1:4).
In Mark 1:4 it is natural to translate it as "John appeared in the desert". But here it is hard to interpet EGENETO this way.
Most translations took it as: There was in the days of Herod the king of Judha a certain priest named Zakarias....

Can we justify the equation EGENETO = there was here?
Does the semantic range of EGENETO include "there was"?

To me, this sentence reminds me of an Hebrew idom which often is translated as "it happened in the days of Herod that .......".
In that case, we may translate the sentence as:

It happened in the days of Herod that a certain priest [was], named Zakarias...

But I am not sure if I can translate hIEREUS TIS as "a certain priest [was]".

Moon Jung
cwconrad
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Re: Luke 1:5: EGENETO's function

Post by cwconrad »

moon wrote:Ἐγένετο ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις Ἡρῴδου βασιλέως τῆς Ἰουδαίας ἱερεύς τις ὀνόματι Ζαχαρίας ἐξ ἐφημερίας Ἀβιά, καὶ γυνὴ αὐτῷ ἐκ τῶν θυγατέρων Ἀαρών, καὶ τὸ ὄνομα αὐτῆς Ἐλισάβετ*.

I wonder how Ἐγένετο functions in this sentence. EGENETO is often used to introduce a story (cf. Mark 1:4).
In Mark 1:4 it is natural to translate it as "John appeared in the desert". But here it is hard to interpet EGENETO this way.
Most translations took it as: There was in the days of Herod the king of Judha a certain priest named Zakarias....

Can we justify the equation EGENETO = there was here?
Does the semantic range of EGENETO include "there was"?

To me, this sentence reminds me of an Hebrew idom which often is translated as "it happened in the days of Herod that .......".
In that case, we may translate the sentence as:

It happened in the days of Herod that a certain priest [was], named Zakarias...

But I am not sure if I can translate hIEREUS TIS as "a certain priest [was]".
Yes, you can. ἐγένετο functions here like an aorist of the verb εἶναι, which has no aorist. It is existential ("there was ... " -- and yes, ἱερεύς τις does indeed mean "a priest" or "a certain priest." τις here is the enclitic indefinite pronoun following upon the noun.

I think you are correct in discerning Hebrew idiom here; this ἐγένετο is comparable to the formulaic LXX Greek equivalent to Heb. וַֽיְהִי. The phrasing of the first two chapters of Luke's gospel, as has been noted by many, seems intended to emulate the LXX.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
David Lim
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Re: Luke 1:5: EGENETO's function

Post by David Lim »

moon wrote:[...] EGENETO is often used to introduce a story (cf. Mark 1:4).
In Mark 1:4 it is natural to translate it as "John appeared in the desert". But here it is hard to interpet EGENETO this way.
Most translations took it as: There was in the days of Herod the king of Judha a certain priest named Zakarias....
Besides what Carl has already said about the parallel usage in the LXX, I would like to add that there is no connotation of "appearing" in "εγενετο". In many cases like in Luke 1:5 it is indeed equivalent to an existential expression in English, but that isn't really intrinsic either, so I wouldn't say that "εγενετο" is like "there was". Instead, it is something like "[it] came to be [that]", which used to be translated in the time of the KJV by "it came to pass" (which was a correct idiom, which had nothing to do with "passing" either). In time this idiom came to be obsolete, and now some translations use "it happened that" (which doesn't work at all for some instances of "εγενετο".

Mark 1:4 is "εγενετο ιωαννης βαπτιζων εν τη ερημω και κηρυσσων βαπτισμα μετανοιας εις αφεσιν αμαρτιων" = "John came to be immersing in the deserted [place] and proclaiming an immersion of repentance for forgiveness of sins" which can be paraphrased as "it happened to be that John was immersing ...". Luke 1:5 is "εγενετο εν ταις ημεραις ηρωδου του βασιλεως της ιουδαιας ιερευς τις ονοματι ζαχαριας εξ εφημεριας αβια και η γυνη αυτου εκ των θυγατερων ααρων και το ονομα αυτης ελισαβετ" = "in the days of Herod the king of the Jews came to be some priest, by name Zechariah, out of the course of Abijah, and his wife out of the daughters of Aaron, and her name Elizabeth." which can be paraphrased as "there arose in the days of Herod ... some priest whose name was Zechariah ...".

For whatever it's worth, here is how Darby (1889) translated it, which has the most similar structure to the original, and hence of course not idiomatic English.
[Mark 1:4] There came John baptising in the wilderness, and preaching the baptism of repentance for remission of sins.
[Luke 1:5] There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest, by name Zacharias, of the course of Abia, and his wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name Elizabeth.
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moon jung
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Re: Luke 1:5: EGENETO's function

Post by moon jung »

David,

wow!. What you said makes a perfect sense to me, and I am happy to be able to treat Mark 1:4 and Lukue 1:5 in the same way.
The only problem with Luke 1:5 is that there is no verb for hIEREUS TIS. Is some verb omitted here?

Luke 1:5 is "εγενετο εν ταις ημεραις ηρωδου του βασιλεως της ιουδαιας ιερευς τις ονοματι ζαχαριας εξ εφημεριας αβια και η γυνη αυτου εκ των θυγατερων ααρων και το ονομα αυτης ελισαβετ" = "in the days of Herod the king of the Jews came to be some priest, by name Zechariah, out of the course of Abijah, and his wife out of the daughters of Aaron, and her name Elizabeth." which can be paraphrased as "there arose in the days of Herod ... some priest whose name was Zechariah ...".

Moon
David Lim
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Re: Luke 1:5: EGENETO's function

Post by David Lim »

moon wrote:wow!. What you said makes a perfect sense to me, and I am happy to be able to treat Mark 1:4 and Lukue 1:5 in the same way.
The only problem with Luke 1:5 is that there is no verb for hIEREUS TIS. Is some verb omitted here?
I would take the verb to be "εγενετο", just as in Mark 1:4. As you learn Greek, you will find that there is completely no necessity for the verb to be anywhere near its subject. There may be intervening phrases like the adverbial clause "εν ταις ημεραις ηρωδου του βασιλεως της ιουδαιας" here. With "ιερευς τις" as the subject of "εγενετο", and the fact that "in the days of ... came to be some priest" is an awkward English phrase, it is why most modern translations use "there was in the days of ... some priest". Also, although your Beta-code Greek is certainly readable for me, it may not be so easy for others who are used to seeing Greek characters, so it might be good if you can type in Unicode. (Personally I use the addon Transliterator for my Firefox browser, which is very easily customizable, but others might suggest the Windows keyboard.)
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moon jung
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Re: Luke 1:5: EGENETO's function

Post by moon jung »

David, thanks for the comment.

If the verb of ἱερεύς τις is Ἐγένετο, then the sentence in Lk 1:5 seems to have a different structure from Lk 1:8, for example.
In Lk 1:8 we have Ἐγένετο + circumstantial adverbial + a full sentence. Here the verb of the full sentence is not Ἐγένετο.

If the usage of Ἐγένετο fundamentally different in Lk 1:5 and Lk 1:8, it is fine to me. But if we want to say that the usage is
similar in both passages, we need to explain the difference in structure in both passages.

Lk 1:5 5 Ἐγένετο ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις Ἡρῴδου βασιλέως τῆς Ἰουδαίας ἱερεύς τις ὀνόματι Ζαχαρίας ἐξ ἐφημερίας Ἀβιά,
Lk 1:8 Ἐγένετο δὲ ἐν τῷ ἱερατεύειν αὐτὸν ἐν τῇ τάξει τῆς ἐφημερίας αὐτοῦ ἔναντι τοῦ Θεοῦ, 9 κατὰ τὸ ἔθος τῆς ἱερατείας ἔλαχε τοῦ θυμιᾶσαι εἰσελθὼν εἰς τὸν ναὸν τοῦ Κυρίου,

Moon Jung
David Lim
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Re: Luke 1:5: EGENETO's function

Post by David Lim »

moon wrote:If the verb of ἱερεύς τις is Ἐγένετο, then the sentence in Lk 1:5 seems to have a different structure from Lk 1:8, for example.
In Lk 1:8 we have Ἐγένετο + circumstantial adverbial + a full sentence. Here the verb of the full sentence is not Ἐγένετο.

If the usage of Ἐγένετο fundamentally different in Lk 1:5 and Lk 1:8, it is fine to me. But if we want to say that the usage is
similar in both passages, we need to explain the difference in structure in both passages.
The sentences indeed have different grammatical structure, but I consider the underlying verb to be the same, since it can and often accepts an implicit impersonal object, which is the case when it is used in a narrative to introduce some occurrence, such as in Luke 1:8 "[it] came to be that when he served in the order of his course before God ...".
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Re: Luke 1:5: EGENETO's function

Post by David Lim »

David Lim wrote:[...] an implicit impersonal object [...]
Sorry I don't know how I used the wrong word; it should be "impersonal subject". I should also say that English always makes subjects explicit using "it". By the way I consider "X" in "there was X" to be the subject of "was", in case it isn't clear in my previous posts.
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moon jung
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Re: Luke 1:5: EGENETO's function

Post by moon jung »

David, I got what you are trying to say.

It is true that Lk 1:8 resembles that Hebrew idom which has the form of
WeYeHi + circumstantial adverbial + Wa + full sentence. In Lk 1:8, it seems that
EGENETO is not "real verb" but but part of
a fixed grammtical structure, whereas in Lk 1:5 EGENETO is a real verb.

But if we can find another Hebrew idiom of the form WeYeHi + circumstantial adverbial + noun phrase,
which looks like Lk 1:5, your explanation will make some good sense.

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cwconrad
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Re: Luke 1:5: EGENETO's function

Post by cwconrad »

moon wrote:David, I got what you are trying to say.

It is true that Lk 1:8 resembles that Hebrew idom which has the form of
WeYeHi + circumstantial adverbial + Wa + full sentence. In Lk 1:8, it seems that
EGENETO is not "real verb" but but part of
a fixed grammtical structure, whereas in Lk 1:5 EGENETO is a real verb.

But if we can find another Hebrew idiom of the form WeYeHi + circumstantial adverbial + noun phrase,
which looks like Lk 1:5, your explanation will make some good sense.
Conybeare & Stock, in a repeatedly reprinted little volume on LXX grammar:
§41. Introduction of the Sentence by a Verb of Being. Very often in imitation of Hebrew idiom the whole sentence is introduced by ἐγένετο or ἔσται.
Gen 39:19 ἐγένετο δὲ ὡς ἤκουσεν . . . καὶ ἐθυμώθη ὀργῇ. Cp. vs. 5, 7, 13.
3 K. [2 Kings.] 18:12 καὶ ἔσται ἐὰν ἐγὼ ἀπέλθω ἀπὸ σοῦ, καὶ πνεῦμα Κυρίου ἀρεῖ σε εἰς τὴν γῆν ἣν οὐκ οἶδας.
In such cases in accordance with western ideas of what a sentence ought to be, we say that καί introduces the apodosis, but it may be that, in its original conception at least, the whole construction was paratactical. It is easy to see this in a single instance like —
Gen 41:8 ἐγένετο δὲ πρωὶ καὶ ἐταράχθη ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ,
but the same explanation may be applied to more complex cases, e.g. —
Nb. 21:9 καὶ ἐγένετο ὅταν ἔδακνεν ὄφις ἄνθρωπον, καὶ ἐπέβλεψεν ἐπὶ τὸν ὄφιν τὸν χαλκοῦν, καὶ ἔζη. And there was when a serpent bit a man, and he looked on the brazen serpent, and lived. Cp. Gen 42:35, 43:2, 21: Jdg. 14:11.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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