Re: Grammar in Mt 6 and 7

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sun Dec 31 1995 - 08:29:32 EST


Briefly, on top of Kevin's helpful comments:

At 2:18 AM 12/31/95, KevLAnder@aol.com wrote:
>Ken,
>
>Maybe these comments will help:
>
>Matt 6:24--I believe hENOS and hETEROU may be genitives of reference, "cling
>(with reference to) the one, and despise (with reference to) the other." Is
>it possible that the gen. case is being used in tandem with the prepositions
>(ANTI and KATA) in the two compound verbs?

Partitive genitive is called for with ANTEXOMAI which is similar to
hAPTOMAI; KATA- verbs, where the KATA- means "against" regularly take a
genitive.

>Matt 7:4--Nunn, in _A Short Syntax of New Testament Greek_ (sec. 119) notes
>that the first person sg. hortatory subj. can be prefixed by APHES. He
>translates: "Let me cast out the mote out of thine eye." Burton (74) also
>writes, "Occasionally the first person singular is used with APHES or DEURO
>prefixed, the exhortation in that case becoming a request of the speaker to
>the person addressed to permit him to do something. Mt. 7:4; See also Lk.
>6:42; Acts 7:34 . . . ."

This is correct; it's comparable to the Latin use of the imperative SINE,
SINITE ("allow," "permit") or DA, DATE ("grant," "give") with a hortatory
subjunctive. This construction has become the standard modern Greek
imperative, by the way:
Koine AFES EKBALW --> MG: AS NA BGALW (where AS is syncopated AFES, NA is
clipped hINA, and BGALW is the equivalent of a new verb derived from the
aorist of ancient EKBALLW, pronounced "vya'lo").

>Matt 7:9,10--What you remember about the uses of OU and MH in questions
>probably serves you well here. MH indicates that the question anticipates a
>negative response: "he will not give him a stone [will he]? . . . he will
>not give him a serpent [will he]?" The answer, of course, is "No!"

Precisely.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:37:35 EDT