[b-greek] Re: Luke 6:12b

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sun Jul 22 2001 - 08:53:44 EDT


At 9:58 AM +0200 7/22/01, Iver Larsen wrote:
>> Ken, I am only a first year Greek student in my undergraduate work;
>> however, I found your question interesting and some possible solutions
>> unsatisfying. Wallace (1996) on page 117 writes in italics that "an
>> objective genitive can only occur with verbal nouns which imply a
>> transitive verb." He then, in note 126, explains that Luke 6:12 seems to
>> be an exception to the rule. He concludes that the meaning is indeed
>> "prayer to God" and the genative is objective eventhough it follows an
>> intransitive verbal noun. He suggests that Acts 4:9 and Matt. 1:12 might
>> also be compared. I would like to know if Wallace's conclusion is
>> satisfactory and this passage really is an exception or if it is possible
>> that the the passage could be rendered differently than Wallace and all
>> translations I have consulted have it.
>>
>> Timothy Lang
>> Wheaton, Illinois
>
>There is no doubt about the meaning "prayer to God". If people cannot sleep
>before they get a name for this, then I suggest it could be called "indirect
>objective genitive" since the verbal noun implies a ditransitive verb (I
>ask/pray to God for something) and the genitive noun corresponds to an
>indirect object in the dative case to show the semantic role of recipient. I
>have not checked what various grammar books might have named it.

I agree about the English expression of the meaning of PROSEUCH QEOU in the
passage in question, but, although I don't have Clay's deep-seated contempt
for the whole grammatical approach of Wallace's GGBB, I certainly think
this quibbling over this passage is unnecessary and even silly. I suppose
that Iver means by "ditransitive verb" what traditional grammars mean by a
verb that takes a double object. But what I think has been missed (or left
implicit but unexpressed)in the above discussion is that a dative
complement (e.g. PISTEUW SOI) is no less a direct complement than an
accusative complement. I think this has also been involved in the several
threads we've had over PISTIS IHSOU CRISTOU: IF we want to argue that IHSOU
CRISTOU is an "objective" genitive, we might run into the same question: is
PISTIS a verbal noun from a transitive verb? I'm frankly not sure what that
means: that Jesus Christ is somehow the RECIPIENT of faith? A colleague and
I once constructed an argument mimicing these distinctions: If we say "I
kick the chair," does that mean something different from "I give the chair
a kick"? Is the chair really an "indirect object" in the second
formulation? Not unless we want to admit that "direct object" and "indirect
object" are STRUCTURAL rather than SEMANTIC terms or get ourselves involved
in some confusion over linguistic expression and objective reality
represented by linguistic expression.
--

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad@ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

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