Re: Acts 1:2

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Tue Jan 02 1996 - 19:15:10 EST


At 10:49 PM 1/1/96, Kenneth Litwak wrote:
> Is there any grammatical way to inow whether dia pneumatos (agiou
>refers back to entellw (Jesus, after having commanded the apostles
>through the Holy Spirit) or to eklegomai (Jesus chose the apostles
>through the Holy Spirit)? Thanks.

While this may sound flippant, it isn't. The author is NOT trying to
confuse anyone and will normally put an adverbial expression in pretty
clear proximity and juxtaposition to the predicate with which it is to be
understood. In this particular instance

        AXRI THS hHMERAS ENTEILAMENOS TOIS APOSTOLOIS DIA PNEUMATOS hAGIOU
        hOUS ECELECATO ANELHMFQH.

Here DIA PNEUMATOS hAGIOU must be understood with ENTEILAMENOS; if it were
to be construed with ECELECATO, it would have been placed INSIDE the clause
beginning with hOUS. And this is GENERALLY true. But there are exceptions,
the weirdest of which whereof I know is in John 1:14, where PLHRHS XARITOS
KAI ALHQEIAS is inexplicably far removed from the only nominative it can
possibly construe with, hO LOGOS at the very beginning of this sentence and
separated from PLHRHS by an entire independent clause (KAI EQEASAMEQA ...)
as well as by the appositional phrase, DOCAN hWS MONOGENOUS PARA PATROS.
Grammatically this word order is a nightmare to a translator, albeit
considerably less grievous than the dreadful Ungeheuer of the opening
verses of Ephesians.

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/



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