Luke 6:1 ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ

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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.
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Luke 6:1 ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ

Post by Jonathan Robie »

cwconrad wrote:But is it easier? Perhaps this is not à propos, but an NET note lists six suggested interpretations for 1 Tim 2:15. For my part I don't find any one of them convincing and I doubt whether the question of the author's intent is worth pursuing. It is, of course, quite obvious that different questions exercise different people's curiosity.
Sometimes the question becomes a lot more interesting if there is a convincing answer. For δευτεροπρώτῳ, I haven't seen it yet, but I'd love to ;->
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
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Stephen Carlson
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Re: Luke 6:1 ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ

Post by Stephen Carlson »

If δευτεροπρώρῳ is not a reading that owes its origin to the author (as the NA27 critical text holds) and if it is the result of some mechanical scribal mistake, then there might not be any meaning to be had.
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cwconrad
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Re: Luke 6:1 ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ

Post by cwconrad »

Stephen Carlson wrote:If δευτεροπρώρῳ is not a reading that owes its origin to the author (as the NA27 critical text holds) and if it is the result of some mechanical scribal mistake, then there might not be any meaning to be had.
The next question to be asked, I think, is whether δευτεροπρώρῳ is a scribal error for δευτεροπρώτῳ? If you ask me, this gets, as Alice remarked, curiouser and curiouser.
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
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Re: Luke 6:1 ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ

Post by Stephen Carlson »

cwconrad wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:If δευτεροπρώρῳ is not a reading that owes its origin to the author (as the NA27 critical text holds) and if it is the result of some mechanical scribal mistake, then there might not be any meaning to be had.
The next question to be asked, I think, is whether δευτεροπρώρῳ is a scribal error for δευτεροπρώτῳ? If you ask me, this gets, as Alice remarked, curiouser and curiouser.
Yes, a typo on my part, from typing a little too quickly. Now, back to the topic at hand.
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Stephen Hughes
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Re: Luke 6:1 ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Stephen Carlson wrote:If δευτεροπρώρῳ is not a reading that owes its origin to the author (as the NA27 critical text holds) and if it is the result of some mechanical scribal mistake, then there might not be any meaning to be had.
To paraphrase him, Stephen is saying that there may have been no meaning at the time of writing.

Without addressing that issue of scribal error, there is a possibilty that there could be two different meanings. The one written and the one read - either or both of which could be the case where there is no meaning.

As this word is preserved in the Byzantine text-form, published in the region which has the majority of continuing Greek speakers, even if it didn't have meaning when written - the case of a scribal error, there would have been natural processes in the language whereby meaning could be drawn out of it.

The relevancy of an obscure reference to the Jewish calendars - if that is what the word is - would also probably be lost after Christianity matured on over time, faced other issues and in that region at least moved beyond the Jewish context and into the pagan philosophical and Gnostic contexts.

My post on the previous page is a suggestion about how a reader / listener may have come to an understanding of the text that they heard read to them.

The majority of people reading or listening to the Bible do not immediately doubt the authenticity of the text or attribute difficulties to scribal error. They try their best to make some sense of it. In this case δευτεροπρώτῳ looks like it could be either the second or first Saturday.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
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Re: Luke 6:1 ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ

Post by cwconrad »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:If δευτεροπρώρῳ is not a reading that owes its origin to the author (as the NA27 critical text holds) and if it is the result of some mechanical scribal mistake, then there might not be any meaning to be had.
To paraphrase him, Stephen is saying that there may have been no meaning at the time of writing.

Without addressing that issue of scribal error, there is a possibilty that there could be two different meanings. The one written and the one read - either or both of which could be the case where there is no meaning.

As this word is preserved in the Byzantine text-form, published in the region which has the majority of continuing Greek speakers, even if it didn't have meaning when written - the case of a scribal error, there would have been natural processes in the language whereby meaning could be drawn out of it.

The relevancy of an obscure reference to the Jewish calendars - if that is what the word is - would also probably be lost after Christianity matured on over time, faced other issues and in that region at least moved beyond the Jewish context and into the pagan philosophical and Gnostic contexts.

My post on the previous page is a suggestion about how a reader / listener may have come to an understanding of the text that they heard read to them.

The majority of people reading or listening to the Bible do not immediately doubt the authenticity of the text or attribute difficulties to scribal error. They try their best to make some sense of it. In this case δευτεροπρώτῳ looks like it could be either the second or first Saturday.
I'll grant a degree of plausibility to this argument, but it reminds me very much of the classic defense of the proposition that the moon is made of green cheese: it cannot be proven but there is no definitive disproof. I think it is true, as Stephen writes, that "the majority of people reading or listening to the Bible do not immediately doubt the authenticity of the text or attribute difficulties to scribal error." Do they ever? Irish scribes copying manuscripts have noted that they didn't understand the text they were copying but hoped that future scholars would be able to make sense of it. As a child I recall congregational unison readings of psalms at Wednesday evening gatherings in which we would read words like "Selah" for which nobody could explain to me any meaning, although it was accepted that it did really mean something to someone at some time. We are presented with something like etymological games: why is yonder stream called "Blood River"? Several possible explanations come to mind, any one of which or none may be valid, but there is no πραγμάτων ἔλεγχος οὐ βλεπομένων.
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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