Mark 9:20 - Who's doing what

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S Walch
Posts: 281
Joined: June 13th, 2011, 4:27 pm
Location: Manchester, UK

Re: Mark 9:20 - Who's doing what

Post by S Walch »

That's a very good question, Stirling. Will have to get back to you on that.

Reading Mark 5:1-7, if we can take a look at v8-13 as well:

8 ἔλεγεν γὰρ αὐτῷ· Ἔξελθε τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἀκάθαρτον ἐκ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. 9 καὶ ἐπηρώτα αὐτόν· Τί ὄνομά σοι; καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· Λεγιὼν ὄνομά μοι, ὅτι πολλοί ἐσμεν· 10 καὶ παρεκάλει αὐτὸν πολλὰ ἵνα μὴ αὐτὰ ἀποστείλῃ ἔξω τῆς χώρας. 11 ἦν δὲ ἐκεῖ πρὸς τῷ ὄρει ἀγέλη χοίρων μεγάλη βοσκομένη· 12 καὶ παρεκάλεσαν αὐτὸν λέγοντες· Πέμψον ἡμᾶς εἰς τοὺς χοίρους, ἵνα εἰς αὐτοὺς εἰσέλθωμεν. 13 καὶ ἐπέτρεψεν αὐτοῖς. καὶ ἐξελθόντα τὰ πνεύματα τὰ ἀκάθαρτα εἰσῆλθον εἰς τοὺς χοίρους, καὶ ὥρμησεν ἡ ἀγέλη κατὰ τοῦ κρημνοῦ εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν, ὡς δισχίλιοι, καὶ ἐπνίγοντο ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ.

I can see that any physical action that the man does (demon influenced or not), all the pronouns and participles agree with him in number/gender. Even in v9, when Jesus is asking the spirits' name, He addresses the man (αυτον), as even though the words are the demons, the physical act of speaking is done by the man.

When we get to v10, the actions of the demon come into focus, we get our neuter pronoun and participle (αυτα ... εξελθοντα), so the physical acts either being performed on the demons or by the demons (ἵνα μὴ αὐτὰ ἀποστείλῃ ... καὶ ἐξελθόντα τὰ πνεύματα τὰ ἀκάθαρτα εἰσῆλθον εἰς τοὺς χοίρους) agree with their subject explicitly.

When we go back to Mark 1:23-26, we see something similar:

23 καὶ εὐθὺς ἦν ἐν τῇ συναγωγῇ αὐτῶν ἄνθρωπος ἐν πνεύματι ἀκαθάρτῳ καὶ ἀνέκραξεν 24 λέγων· Τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί, Ἰησοῦ Ναζαρηνέ; ἦλθες ἀπολέσαι ἡμᾶς; οἶδά σε τίς εἶ, ὁ ἅγιος τοῦ θεοῦ. 25 καὶ ἐπετίμησεν αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς λέγων· Φιμώθητι καὶ ἔξελθε ἐξ αὐτοῦ. 26 καὶ σπαράξαν αὐτὸν τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἀκάθαρτον καὶ φωνῆσαν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ ἐξῆλθεν ἐξ αὐτοῦ.

When the man is the subject focus, the participle λέγων agrees with him in gender - but as soon as the subject changes to the πνευμα, the participles agree with it in gender, even if one supposes that it's the man that does the physical φωνῆσαν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ (even though, I guess it could be argued that perhaps the man didn't physically cry out, but the spirit did so separately).

So whilst I will agree that we probably shouldn't be dividing the demon and the demoniac, it seems that the GoM at least conforms the participles and pronouns to the subjects gender, and not a different one.
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