Galatians 1:1-5 - Segmentation Bunnytrail

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cwconrad
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Re: Galatians 1:1-5

Post by cwconrad »

οὐκ ἔστιν τοῦ γραμματικοῦ τὰς περιόδους διαιρεῖν, μᾶλλον δὲ τοὺς (τῆς περιόδου) λόγους συντάσσειν.

In Gal 1:1 ἀπόστολος οὐκ ἀπ᾿ ἀνθρώπων οὐδὲ δι᾿ ἀνθρώπου ἀλλὰ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ θεοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν I don't see that segmenting this overmuch really assists understanding how the text means. Sure, you can mark off οὐκ ἀπ᾿ ἀνθρώπων from οὐδὲ δι᾿ ἀνθρώπου and from  ἀλλὰ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ θεοῦ πατρὸς (I think τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν is a bit of lagniappe, although undoubtedly it underscores the ratonale offered by Paul for his authority) -- but the three phrases are clearly and importantly linked by οὐκ ... οὐδὲ ... ἀλλά ... I don't think this segmentation procedure illuminates the text. To me, at any rate, it seems obvious that Paul is here setting himself up aggressively as one who holds full and independent authority over others who might challenge his authority. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I don't think that any grammatical or linguistic analysis was called upon to reach that understanding of this text. How one may segment or sub-segment this passage does not, so far as I can see, significantly assist the understanding of the text. Moreover, it seems to me that it's the logic of the sentence structure that distinguishes the "intonation units" rather than vice versa -- unless the open mouth gets too far ahead of the mind that forms expressions. I think we should be thinking in terms of syntactic groups that constitute the whole rather than of how far we can carry the analysis of subordinate and sub-subordinate units of discourse.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
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Re: Galatians 1:1-5

Post by Stephen Carlson »

cwconrad wrote:How one may segment or sub-segment this passage does not, so far as I can see, significantly assist the understanding of the text. Moreover, it seems to me that it's the logic of the sentence structure that distinguishes the "intonation units" rather than vice versa -- unless the open mouth gets too far ahead of the mind that forms expressions. I think we should be thinking in terms of syntactic groups that constitute the whole rather than of how far we can carry the analysis of subordinate and sub-subordinate units of discourse.
This opening stretch of text is well-behaved enough that breaking it down into a series of intonation units is only of marginal benefit. The segmenting here may seem overmuch but it's not really characteristic of the whole text--though Paul seems to prefer smaller units. (Eusebius, on the other hand, likes overloading them, and I'm stuck with really long ones in my reading there.)

Syntax remains important here because it helps directs how to put the pieces together. Many of the important signals for doing so are located at the left edge of these units, e.g., οὐκ ... οὐδὲ ... ἀλλά .... But there are places later on, especially the anacolutha in chapter 2, where the syntax is simply abandoned. There is no whole to construe syntactically, only a series of fall starts and rabbit trails. I would also suggest that syntax alone is not sufficient to grasp Eph 1:3-14, because the monstrosity is simply too big to keep entirely in one's active memory until the very end.
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Re: Galatians 1:1-5

Post by Jonathan Robie »

I think we can use this study as a way of benchmarking various approaches and seeing what they teach us. Segmenting may not be that helpful for this passage, Stephen may show that it is more useful for other passages. Other people may have approaches that shed more light on this introduction.

Speaking for myself, I really value approaches that put as much emphasis as possible on the text per se rather than the metalanguage. And one of the nice things about Stephen's segmentation is that it does no harm from that perspective, you can lay the text out nicely without having to tell the reader about intonation units and such, we can debate those questions in another thread. It seems to give some of the benefits of other styles of discourse analysis without distracting as much from the text per se, without changing the entire conversation so that it is dominated by the metalanguage.

At any rate, let's focus on the text, from any perspective, and see what each approach teaches us, rather than focusing on which approach is best. Because if we do that, we're losing the focus on the text.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
cwconrad
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Re: Galatians 1:1-5

Post by cwconrad »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
cwconrad wrote:How one may segment or sub-segment this passage does not, so far as I can see, significantly assist the understanding of the text. Moreover, it seems to me that it's the logic of the sentence structure that distinguishes the "intonation units" rather than vice versa -- unless the open mouth gets too far ahead of the mind that forms expressions. I think we should be thinking in terms of syntactic groups that constitute the whole rather than of how far we can carry the analysis of subordinate and sub-subordinate units of discourse.
This opening stretch of text is well-behaved enough that breaking it down into a series of intonation units is only of marginal benefit. The segmenting here may seem overmuch but it's not really characteristic of the whole text--though Paul seems to prefer smaller units. (Eusebius, on the other hand, likes overloading them, and I'm stuck with really long ones in my reading there.)

Syntax remains important here because it helps directs how to put the pieces together. Many of the important signals for doing so are located at the left edge of these units, e.g., οὐκ ... οὐδὲ ... ἀλλά .... But there are places later on, especially the anacolutha in chapter 2, where the syntax is simply abandoned. There is no whole to construe syntactically, only a series of fall starts and rabbit trails. I would also suggest that syntax alone is not sufficient to grasp Eph 1:3-14, because the monstrosity is simply too big to keep entirely in one's active memory until the very end.
The passage to which you look ahead in Gal 2 (that anacoluthon, as well as others elsewhere in the GNT) is precisely what I was referring to as an instance of the mouth getting too far ahead of the mind that forms expressions." There is indeed both an opportunity and a challenge in linking the message which the mind formulates to the message which the mouth voices and the pen inscribes. It should not surprise us, who (most of us, at any rate, I certainly) have considerable difficulty keeping what we're thinking in synch with what we're voicing and inscribing (or typing), that Biblical authors were prone to the same challenges and occasionally failed in the same way as ourselves. Our own failure to proof what we've composed and make corrections where needed should help us to acknowledge sympathetically that the ancients too were occasionally guilty of the sin of omission -- which is, I think, as good a definition of anacoluthon as some others.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
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Stephen Carlson
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Galatians 1:1-5 - Segmentation Bunnytrail

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Moderator's note: I want to keep our reading group focused on the text, and accessible to mere mortals, so I am breaking out this technical bunnytrail. -- Jonathan
Stephen Hughes wrote:This post would really be better suited a bit further up the thread, but anyway...
Stephen Carlson wrote:I ... suggest that the first step is to break the period down into its colons (κῶλα) or intontation / information units, each can be phrased in a single breath and basically corresponding to one idea (referent, state, or event). ...
I don't know what kind of emphasemic (or ghostly) reading you are imagining? But are you serious about beginning to read a text with one-word-one-breath colons?
Yes, I am serious. (Your focus on the breath ignores Wallace Chafe's "one idea" part of this notion as well.) Don't get hung up on this; this text is not representative (Paul's usual colons are longer), but it just happens works out that way here according to the usual markers (ἀλλά, etc.). The rhetorical effect is to let the audience think about each assertion about his apostleship, without skipping over them too quickly. It is a solemn beginning.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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Re: Galatians 1:1-5

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
Gal 1:3a wrote:χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ θεοῦ πατρὸς καὶ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ,
Here, ὐμῖν falls in second position. For the longest time, I thought Paul's greeting was 'Grace to you ... and peace from God etc." Now I realize that ὐμῖν is merely in second position, so the NET's translation of "Grace and peace to you" is more appropriate.
I get a problem like this with "and"s all the time in teaching English. At some point - perhaps reflecting the grammarians' understanding of Latin grammar - there is an idea that "and" (and "καί") has two functions - between things with one verb and between two verbs. Students of a foreign language jump to conclusions (without thinking) about "which one it is of the two" it is. You concluded for a long time that it was a between-verbs type (εἴη) χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ (εἴη) εἰρήνη ἀπὸ, now you think it is a between things with the same verb type (εἴησαν) χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ ... of use of the conjunctive. But I guess that you are still thinking that "grace" is one thing and "peace" is another.

Now that you have found that there are two elements and one verb you don't need to stay with the old definitionyou can go one step further with the καὶ to what I call the "therefore-and" (perhaps if you need big words for that to feel comfortable, you could perhaps call it "the καί of implicitly referenced consequentiality" :lol: - but I like to keep the terms loose, lay and simple - like keeping the circle big so that more kids can enjoy playing marbles). It is like the and in "She was tall and beautiful" (spoken by someone who thinks being tall makes a woman beautiful).

To further expand your translation, "May grace and therefore (following from that) peace be given to you from ..." (I'm using "give" rather than "be" in the translation because it is more natural English - in another language perhaps it could still be "be".
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
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Re: Galatians 1:1-5

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stephen Hughes wrote:I get a problem like this with "and"s all the time in teaching English. At some point - perhaps reflecting the grammarians' understanding of Latin grammar - there is an idea that "and" (and "καί") has two functions - between things with one verb and between two verbs. Students of a foreign language jump to conclusions (without thinking) about "which one it is of the two" it is. You concluded for a long time that it was a between-verbs type (εἴη) χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ (εἴη) εἰρήνη ἀπὸ, now you think it is a between things with the same verb type (εἴησαν) χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ ... of use of the conjunctive. But I guess that you are still thinking that "grace" is one thing and "peace" is another.
Uh, I don't recognize my thinking in your characterization of my thought. This "between verb" thing is new to me and not what I had in mind.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
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