Re: Col. 2:13-14--syntax perplexity

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 29 2000 - 12:28:33 EST


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<div>At 11:44 AM -0500 3/29/00, Rodney J. Decker wrote:</div>
<div>&gt;I've noted that there is a significant difference in the
punctuation at the<br>
&gt;end of Col. 2:13. Some texts have a comma, some a period (or
colon). That<br>
&gt;is significant in that a major stop would force the first
participle in v.<br>
&gt;14 to go with the finite verb in v. 14 rather than with the
preceding<br>
&gt;finite verb in v. 13. Complicating that is the KAI in the middle
of v. 14<br>
&gt;(and, to a lesser degree, the lack of a connective at the
beginning of v.<br>
&gt;14). It puzzles me as to how this KAI functions if there is a
period at the<br>
&gt;end of v. 13. (With a comma it connects the two finite verbs in
v. 13 &amp;<br>
&gt;14.) The comma seems to make the best sense of the syntax, and I
don't see<br>
&gt;anything that would have caused the newer texts (UBS3/4,
NA25/26/27) to<br>
&gt;change the more traditional comma (TR, majority text, WH) to a
period.<br>
&gt;<br>
&gt;(13) ... SUNZOWPOIHSEN hUMAS ... CARISAMENOS ... TA PARAPTWMATA.
(14)<br>
&gt;EXALEIYAS TO ... CEIROGRAFON ..., KAI AUTO HRKEN EK TOU MESOU
PROSHLWSAS<br>
&gt;AUTO TWi STAURWi.<br>
&gt;</div>
<div>&gt;Any explanations or suggestions are very much welcome!
Thanks.</div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>
</font><font color="#007700">For what it's worth, I agree with you,
Rod, that a period at the end of verse 13 doesn't really make much
sense--but what seems to me rather aggravating to an impatient
grammarian is the way these run-on sentences of Ephesians and
Colossians seem to force an editor to drop a period sooner or later
even if the movement of the thought doesn't seem to have come to a
natural resting point. This is a terrible thought, but I sometimes
wonder whether the editorial committee may have decided, "This is
where we'll have to start a new sentence in our target language, so
we might as well mark a period there for the reader's sake, to make
clear to him/her how we understand the diviision of major and minor
clauses in this long-winded sequence." Surely EXALEIYAS must depend
syntactically upon SUNEZWiOPOIHSEN and the KAI preceding AUTO HRKEN
must link that finite verb to the chain in SUNEZWiOPOIHSEN--but it
looks like the editors want us to understand the sequence as "And
erasing the IOU, he removed it and nailed it to the cross." So,
again I say, only for what it's worth, that's what it looks like
to me: that the punctuation is a translator's ploy that has less to
do with the syntax of the Greek text than with a suggestion of how to
piece together the elements in one target language or
another.</font></div>
<div><br></div>

<div>-- <br>
&nbsp;<br>
Carl W. Conrad<br>
Department of Classics/Washington University<br>
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018<br>
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649<br>
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu </div>
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