Acts passim and 1Pt.3:13 κακοῦν / κάκωσις

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Stephen Hughes
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Acts passim and 1Pt.3:13 κακοῦν / κάκωσις

Post by Stephen Hughes »

To avoid another discussion that resembles a dog chasing its tail, let me just ask a question:

Does anyone know or have a way to know whether the action described by κακοῦν / κάκωσις refers to (a) brief or (b) protracted bouts of bad things happening?

I am hoping that someone has come to a conclusion about this point from their own way of discovering nuance and meaning can share their conclusion. ;)

So far as understanding is concerned, the place where it will be most relevant to shaping understanding is in the Israel in Egypt story. Either, (a) they suffered bad things from time to time throughout the 400 year period, or (b) they suffered bad things for 400 years.

For your convenience, the relevant verses are:
Acts 7:6 wrote:Ἐλάλησεν δὲ οὕτως ὁ θεός, ὅτι ἔσται τὸ σπέρμα αὐτοῦ πάροικον ἐν γῇ ἀλλοτρίᾳ, καὶ δουλώσουσιν αὐτὸ καὶ κακώσουσιν, ἔτη τετρακόσια.
Acts 7:19 wrote:Οὗτος κατασοφισάμενος τὸ γένος ἡμῶν, ἐκάκωσεν τοὺς πατέρας ἡμῶν, τοῦ ποιεῖν ἔκθετα τὰ βρέφη αὐτῶν, εἰς τὸ μὴ ζῳογονεῖσθαι.
Acts 7:34 wrote:Ἰδὼν εἶδον τὴν κάκωσιν τοῦ λαοῦ μου τοῦ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ, καὶ τοῦ στεναγμοῦ αὐτῶν ἤκουσα· καὶ κατέβην ἐξελέσθαι αὐτούς· καὶ νῦν δεῦρο, ἀποστελῶ σε εἰς Αἴγυπτον.
Acts 12:1 wrote:Κατ’ ἐκεῖνον δὲ τὸν καιρὸν ἐπέβαλεν Ἡρῴδης ὁ βασιλεὺς τὰς χεῖρας κακῶσαί τινας τῶν ἀπὸ τῆς ἐκκλησίας.
Acts 14:2 wrote:Οἱ δὲ ἀπειθοῦντες Ἰουδαῖοι ἐπήγειραν καὶ ἐκάκωσαν τὰς ψυχὰς τῶν ἐθνῶν κατὰ τῶν ἀδελφῶν.
Acts 18:10 wrote:διότι ἐγώ εἰμι μετὰ σοῦ, καὶ οὐδεὶς ἐπιθήσεταί σοι τοῦ κακῶσαί σε· διότι λαός ἐστίν μοι πολὺς ἐν τῇ πόλει ταύτῃ.
1 Peter 3:13 wrote:Καὶ τίς ὁ κακώσων ὑμᾶς, ἐὰν τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ μιμηταὶ γένησθε;

In all cases the understanding of the length of time
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Acts passim and 1Pt.3:13 κακοῦν / κάκωσις

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Hughes wrote:Does anyone know or have a way to know whether the action described by κακοῦν / κάκωσις refers to (a) brief or (b) protracted bouts of bad things happening?
I would be surprised if this distinction related to length of time is part of the lexical semantics of either of these words. If someone wanted to tell me it is, I would ask them what evidence they have for that view.

The lexicons do not suggest this kind of distinction. Similar words in other languages I know do not suggest this kind of distinction.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
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Stephen Hughes
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Re: Acts passim and 1Pt.3:13 κακοῦν / κάκωσις

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Gust vs. Breeze is quite distinct, trip vs. journey is not quite so.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Acts passim and 1Pt.3:13 κακοῦν / κάκωσις

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Hughes wrote:Gust vs. Breeze is quite distinct, trip vs. journey is not quite so.
Yes, length of time can be part of the lexical semantics of a word - growth vs. transformation might be another example. I don't think it is for κακοῦν / κάκωσις, is there any reason to think that it is?
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Acts passim and 1Pt.3:13 κακοῦν / κάκωσις

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Jonathan Robie wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:Gust vs. Breeze is quite distinct, trip vs. journey is not quite so.
Yes, length of time can be part of the lexical semantics of a word - growth vs. transformation might be another example. I don't think it is for κακοῦν / κάκωσις, is there any reason to think that it is?
Let's not get onto the topic of my thinking. Perhaps we could think about another part of one of those verses. Look at:
Acts 7:6 wrote:Ἐλάλησεν δὲ οὕτως ὁ θεός, ὅτι ἔσται τὸ σπέρμα αὐτοῦ πάροικον ἐν γῇ ἀλλοτρίᾳ, καὶ δουλώσουσιν αὐτὸ καὶ κακώσουσιν, ἔτη τετρακόσια.
How do you think about δουλοῦν? Before it undergoes grammatical change to suit the circumstance (future). Does it mean "kept as a slave" (throughout the 400 years), or "made to be a slave" (at the start of the 400 years)?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Acts passim and 1Pt.3:13 κακοῦν / κάκωσις

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
Jonathan Robie wrote:I don't think it is for κακοῦν / κάκωσις, is there any reason to think that it is?
Let's not get onto the topic of my thinking.
That wasn't a question about your thinking.

Without an answer to that question, ὶδοὺ τὰ πάντα ματαιότης καὶ προαίρεσις πνεύματος. If you keep dodging that question, the dog keeps chasing its tail.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
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Stephen Hughes
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Re: Acts passim and 1Pt.3:13 κακοῦν / κάκωσις

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Although I have shared a little of my thinking about Greek as situations have arisen on your forum, those were freely given by my own choice. Like any owner of intelectual property, the way that I have arrived at a conclusion is my business to share or not. If one were to go to a restaurant and demand to see the recipe or to a factory know the production secrets that would create a stir. Here the restaurant is not one that anyone pays for, and in such a case it is even more surprising that someone would demand to know the recipe.

I had a similar problem in high school when I got a new maths teacher. I had been scoring well, but then got zero or there abouts for an exam. Saying very similar things to what you have said recently about requiring this and that, and showing me the blank pages of my exam paper where they thought (insisted) that there should have been working and reasoning that because others had gone through a single linear sequence of steps to arrive at an answer, rather than just the answers. At that age, and within that relationship structure, not much good came of it. Now, as a more self-aware thinker, I understand that there is value in the linear steps formulae that other people are able to use. Just simply from practical observation, it is evident that people can arrive at the same answers without internalising the problem, and during a process of continual shifting between sensory input and thought and production - writing, reading and thinking all at the same time, and having the strength to change quickly between sensory input (acquisition) and thought (processing). I don't often understand single line logical proofs, and am not good at putting the parallel and multi-directional body of thought together into a logical argument. That is as sometimes happens quite difficult to follow in posts.

What I'm really wanting here is to know whether someone who is able to process in a single line with steps, moving between data (input) and consideration ( thought) has noticed the time details of this word in its nominal and verbal form. I have reached my conclusion and would like to know now or at some later time what they think.

I've avoided even giving my thinking about this, in the hope that we could avoid pointing out that that other people do something or other, but I don't. Some people who can switch between input and thought are able to cope and thrive with looking up the dictionary as they read. I have problems with that, so am burdened with a great deal of memorisation work.

I think that everybody following these threads is now quite aware enough that I'm lacking in the ability to construct logical single line arguments moving quickly from examples to thought. If you've had enough of pointing out to people what I'm unable to do, Jonathan, could you leave some room for any who might be able to do what I find so difficult, or at least help a little.

I don't want to share the process of thought whereby I arrived at the conclusions I have because I'm not sure they would be understandable, and I am sure they would not be convincing because they don't follow a single line step-by-step logical pattern, like what you are used to finding convincing. There is a big difference between sharing recipes in a quiet environment with those who enjoy what they ate, than with somebody who refuses to eat unless they both know the recipe and that the recipe would be structured in a certain way. It's your dog that wants to chase tails, mine wants to hunt and move in a pack.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Acts passim and 1Pt.3:13 κακοῦν / κάκωσις

Post by Jonathan Robie »

I'm really not sure what to do with this kind of thread, Stephen. The kind of thread where you are asking about semantics of a word that go beyond what is in the lexicon, without providing evidence that it does.

These threads often imply that the word has a meaning that I don't think it does. So I say no, I don't think so. You imply it does. I ask for evidence that it has such a meaning - that kind of question really does need to be in scope. If someone else chimes in to say that it has that kind of meaning, I will ask them for evidence too. I'm not sure how else it could work.

You may well have more behind this that you don't want to share, but there's not much to discuss unless you share it. And I've had other people tell me they find this kind of thread frustrating too.

You have a lot of good things to share here on B-Greek. But I find this particular kind of thread frustrating.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Acts passim and 1Pt.3:13 κακοῦν / κάκωσις

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Well if only you and involved in the threads. Of the two of us, you feel frustrated by my style of introducing ideas gradually, and I feel you are frustrating the discussion because you refuse to let discussion naturally continue unless your conditions for the structure of a disussion are followed, then I'd say we don't have a way of going ahead.

I would like to look critically at what is portrayed in the reference works. I want to see for myself what sort of reliability tgat i can count on for the entries for the less frequent words. So far, I think that a very few definitions are quite vague, because they use English definitions that can be understood more broadly than the Greek has been used with. Another issue is using a translation in the definition that differs from the definition given.

For me it would be more useful to get some more input than just my own, but to that end, just getting a repeated "provide evidence" achieves about the same ends as getting none. I was hoping to find a discussion partner to be my sounding board and to share the process with me, as you have seen me do on some occasions myself. I respect discussion and fuller reasoning (tangents) more than linear focused reasoning. I greatly dislike adersarial win-lose discussions.

Either way, if there is no interest in exploring the reference works in that way - or worse that there is a general preconception that the dictionaries are axiomatic and a basis for other reasoning - then there is not much point to discussing these types of issues. In fact, some people need to believe that there is an element of certainty in a foreign language, to make learning more manageable or tame. This exploration of the degree of confidence that I can put in dictionaries and to develop the skill of spotting the quality of entries is one of my aims for 2016. I think learning and teaching along with basic comprehension questions are only part of the potential that discussion of Greek can cover.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Acts passim and 1Pt.3:13 κακοῦν / κάκωσις

Post by Stephen Hughes »

As an epitaph, let me say that archeological and textual evidence suggests that foreigners who settled in the delta lived generally peaceful lives, but on some occasions bad things happened. In Modern Greek, that word is used of what we might call accidents. I think it refers to brief episodes.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
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