Mark 10:12 μοιχαται - "he" or "she"

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David Lim
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Re: Mark 10:12 μοιχαται - "he" or "she"

Post by David Lim »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
jonathan.borland wrote:I thought of this after coming across the critical rule of one Thomas Magister (14th cent.): μοιχασθαι ο ανηρ, μοιχευεται δε η γυνη. Are there any who actually take this approach and translate Mark 10:12 as something like, "And when she who has divorced her husband marries another, he commits adultery"?
Thomas Magister is pretty obscure. Who cites him?

Come to think of it, your translation is ambiguous. To whom does the he refer? If to the divorced husband, the logic does not make any sense. If it refers to the other (ἄλλον) who married the divorcée, then the logical problem I pointed out goes away.

Stephen
Wow I did not even notice that ambiguity! I suppose it is because "another" is so indefinite that I assumed it could not be the subject of the following verb. And I would add that I think the focus is clearly on the wife who divorces her husband and thus commits adultery against her husband, just as the focus in the parallel preceding sentence is on whoever divorces his wife and thus commits adultery against his wife.
δαυιδ λιμ
George F Somsel
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Re: Mark 10:12 μοιχαται - "he" or "she"

Post by George F Somsel »

The passage is relatively clear. Beginning with 10.11 and continuing through 10.12 it sets forth two conditions: (1) The man divorces his wife [10.11] and (2) The woman divorces her husband. Gould in the ICC commentary on Mk notes
Under the Jewish law, the wife could not put away her husband
but Swete in his commentary notes
The divorce of the husband by the wife was possible under both Greek and Roman Law


This would indicate that Bultmann was correct in asserting that the gospels find their setting in the early Christian church and are not therefore simply historical recordings of Jesus' ipsissima verba.
george
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jonathan.borland
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Re: Mark 10:12 μοιχαται - "he" or "she"

Post by jonathan.borland »

Stephen Carlson wrote: Thomas Magister is pretty obscure. Who cites him?

Come to think of it, your translation is ambiguous. To whom does the he refer? If to the divorced husband, the logic does not make any sense. If it refers to the other (ἄλλον) who married the divorcée, then the logical problem I pointed out goes away.

Stephen
Thomas Magister is quoted by both Wettstein in his edition at Matt 5:32 and also by Tischendorf (8th ed.) at the same place, after which Tischendorf, arguing for μοιχευθηναι instead of the majority μοιχασθαι, states, "At non est quod talem distinctionem potius evglstam quam scriptores codicum putemus neglexisse, quibus μοιχασθαι, quod haud dubie eodem sensu usurpabatur, accommodatius ad μοιχαται (et h. l. et 19, 9) poni videri poterat," which I render as, "But this is not such a distinction that we think the evangelist could have neglected more than the writers of manuscripts, to whom μοιχασθαι, which without doubt was used in the same sense, seemed more suitable to be put down in conformation with μοιχαται (both in this place and 19:9)." Bloomfield also mentions Thomas in his GNT.

Yes, I suggested that the discrepancy between Mark 10:12 and the others (Matt 5:32 / Matt 19:9 / Luke 16:18) might be solved by seeing the "other" who marries the divorced woman as the subject of μοιχαται in Mark 10:12, but I'm not sure it's such a great suggestion! I made it on the basis that (1) the parallel passages diverge as to who is committing the adultery (in Mark it's traditionally the woman, in the others it's the man), and (2) the supposed critical canon of Attic Greek that μοιχευω in the passive is supposed to be used for a woman committing adultery, μοιχαομαι for the man. Again, I don't necessarily think it's a good suggestion. I was just throwing it out for discussion. Thanks for joining in, by the way!

Sincerely,

Jonathan C. Borland
Martin Harris
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Re: Mark 10:12 μοιχαται - "he" or "she"

Post by Martin Harris »

Mark 10:12: και εαν αυτη απολυσασα τον ανδρα αυτης γαμηση αλλον μοιχαται.

This question may seem silly at first, but with the quirks of Mark's Greek, I'm wondering if the subject of μοιχαται here might actually be understood as the man who marries the divorced woman, just as Luke explicitly states (Luke 16:18: . . . και ο απολελυμενην απο ανδρος γαμων μοιχευει). Am I totally off base here? I thought of this after coming across the critical rule of one Thomas Magister (14th cent.): μοιχασθαι ο ανηρ, μοιχευεται δε η γυνη. Are there any who actually take this approach and translate Mark 10:12 as something like, "And when she who has divorced her husband marries another, he commits adultery"?
I feel that αλλον is strongly paired with τον ανδρα αυτης so cannot double up in function as a new (implied) subject of the following verb. It seems to me that this would violate a basic structure. In order for the subject of μοιχαται to be the new husband, a new word houtos is required because αλλον only points backwards.
jonathan.borland
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Re: Mark 10:12 μοιχαται - "he" or "she"

Post by jonathan.borland »

Thanks, Martin,

You may be right. What of the discrepancy with Matthew and Luke (they used Mark, right?), and that if Mark meant the woman they might have expected him to write μοιχευεται and not μοιχαται, which according to the Grammarians apparently needs a male subject to be "correct" (but see LXX Ezek 16:32). By the way, I think the Alexandians may have altered Matthew's μοιχασθαι in Matt 5:32 to μοιχευθηναι in order to "correct" Matthew's grammar. Study the parallel passages and tell me what you think. It's interesting at least.

Jonathan C. Borland
cwconrad
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Re: Mark 10:12 μοιχαται - "he" or "she"

Post by cwconrad »

jonathan.borland wrote:Thanks, Martin,

You may be right. What of the discrepancy with Matthew and Luke (they used Mark, right?), and that if Mark meant the woman they might have expected him to write μοιχευεται and not μοιχαται, which according to the Grammarians apparently needs a male subject to be "correct" (but see LXX Ezek 16:32). By the way, I think the Alexandians may have altered Matthew's μοιχασθαι in Matt 5:32 to μοιχευθηναι in order to "correct" Matthew's grammar. Study the parallel passages and tell me what you think. It's interesting at least.

Jonathan C. Borland
We ordinarily do not discuss synoptic variants of comparable texts in this forum, the reason being that we individually approach the Biblical text from a very wide range of hermeneutical perspectives and assumptions about the nature of the text and intertextual relationships. Granted that the matter is interesting, I think that the more appropriate place to discuss it is on the TC discussion group (Textual criticism of the Old and New Testament : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/textualcriticism/
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
jonathan.borland
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Re: Mark 10:12 μοιχαται - "he" or "she"

Post by jonathan.borland »

Thanks, Dr. Conrad,

I think it's about time to let this thread rest in peace anyway.

Sincerely,

Jonathan C. Borland
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