[b-greek] Re: Mark 1:4 Adjectival participal with article

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Oct 19 2000 - 11:26:50 EDT


At 12:22 AM +1000 10/20/00, bsullivan wrote:
>Greetings to all,
>
>Mark 1:4 reads: egeneto Iwanhs ho baptizwn en th erhmw khrusswn baptisma
>metanoias eis afesin hamartiwn
>
>It is my understanding that when a participle has the article, but with no
>preceding noun the noun is understood hence ho baptizwn refers to John 'the
>(one) baptizing' (= the baptizer) virtually meaning ho baptisths [the
>baptist].
>
>Am I on the right track?

Yes, but I think a simpler way to formulate or understand what's going on
here is to see it as an instance of the principle of attributive position
of a modifier. That is, just as hO AGAQOS ANHR is equivalent to hO ANHR hO
AGAQOS, so hO BAPTIZWN IWANNHS is equivalent to IWANNHS hO BAPTIZWN. And
I'd carry this a bit farther and say that the equivalence of hO AGAQOS ANHR
and hO ANHR hO AGAQOS is more like the equivalence of an appositive to its
referent:
        "The good man" = "the man, i.e. the good one" --and so,
        "The baptizing John" = John, i.e. the baptizing man"
and it's only one step beyond that to a real appositional noun:
        IWANNHS hO BAPTISTHS, where the epithet is regularly associated
with the noun and one might even dispense with the article and have IWANNHS
BAPTISTHS, wherein BAPTISTHS becomes a proper epithet. This is exactly what
has happened with IHSOUS hO CRISTOS, I think: what began as an appositional
attribute became a proper epithet and then part of a single proper name.

--

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


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