Re: Almost biblical Greek questions

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Jan 11 1996 - 14:20:38 EST


Ken, I wish you'd try to follow (any) one of the conventions we've tried to
adopt for transliteration. I'm not sure that I understand some of what
you've have transcribed from your transliteration. Personally I really find
it easier to read transliterated Greek in these posts when it's done in
upper case except for breathing-marks, subscripts, etc.

At 6:25 PM 1/10/96, Kenneth Litwak wrote:
> I'd like to ask some questions about the Didache*, which frequently reminds
>me of NT texts but of course the author feels the need to use
>hapax legomena words for vices every second word. I know it's not quite
>biblical Greek but parts are pretty close.
>1. In Didache III, there are several verses which include mhde .... mhde.
>such as "neither jealous nor contentious nor hot-tempered". These are
>typically preceded by an exhortation beginning with ou ginou. I'm wondierng
>if the ginou should be seen as implied in the following coordinated mhd
>clauses, or if isqe

Do you mean "ISQI" (sg.)? I don't recognize "ISQE" (and in fact I thought
you were writing a Latin "ISQUE."

I don't have the text before me, but I think that GINOU is probably right
(but why OU rather than MH? perhaps it should be implicitly the future
indicative used as an imperative: OU GENHi (?)

is implied or if these should be understood with no
>verb at all. I would previously have gone for the first or second choice
>except that I've now read Porter arguing that the understanding of
>nominal clauses as having an elided auxillary verb is incorrect (anyone want
>to comment on that argument?).

I decline henceforth to make no comment on Porter until I have read the stuff.

>2. In I:5, it reads (ina ti elabe kai eis ti. I don't think I've seen any
>thing like that before. I know how Lightfoot translated it but I'd appreciate
>other suggestions and how one would go about figuring out exaclty what this
>should mean. It doesn't seem to follow readily from what preceded it. It
>seems odd to have interrogative pronouns/particles in the middle of a hina
>clause.

I think something's missing here from what you've cited. Or is this one of
those weird instances where hINA is being used (a solecism?) as a
preposition equivalent to DIA? " ... why he took (it) and for what (use)"

...
>4. Finally, II:7 says ou mishseis panta anqrwpou. I think this says
>"You shall not hate every person", while Lightfoot translates it as
>"thou shalt not hate any man". I don't think I accept translating pas as
>"any". that's what tis is for. Comments?

Again, a question of transcription: shouldn't that be ANQRWPON rather than
ANQRWPOU? If so, I think this usage of PANTA is a Hebraism (Semitism?)
where PANTA is used like Hebrew KOL, which means indiscriminately "all,"
"every," or "any."

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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