[b-greek] Re: Philippians 1:27

From: Steven Lo Vullo (slovullo@mac.com)
Date: Sat Mar 23 2002 - 23:27:14 EST


on 3/23/02 10:09 PM, Polycarp66@aol.com at Polycarp66@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 3/23/2002 9:56:22 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> slovullo@mac.com writes:
>
>
>>
>> MONON AXIWS TOU EUAGGELIOU TOU CRISTOU POLITEUESQE, hINA EITE ELQWN KAI IDWN
>> hUMAS EITE APWN AKOUW TA PERI hUMWN, hOTI STHKETE EN hENI PNEUMATI, MIAi
>> YUCHi SUNAQLOUNTES THi PISTEI TOU EUAGGELIOU
>>
>> While I understood (though disagreed with) Manolis Nikolaou's position, I'm
>> afraid I still do not understand yours. You seem to be construing the hOTI
>> clause with POLITEUESQE, as a subordinate result clause. Manolis understood
>> that in order to construe AKOUW with APWN, there must be an elliptical
>> subjunctive verb for the hINA clause to function as a purpose clause. He
>> chose GNW as the elliptical verb, and understood the hOTI clause as the
>> object of GNW. In this case, the correlative clauses would be subordinate to
>> the elliptical GNW as well. It seems to me that if we eliminate AKOUW as the
>> subjunctive verb with hINA in the purpose clause, this is the route we must
>> follow. The way you seem to have construed the hOTI clause leaves us without
>> a purpose clause at all, since, in the end, there never is a subjunctive
>> verb to construe with hINA, explicit or implied. If hINA introduces a
>> purpose clause, and if the correlative clauses (EITE ... EITE) are
>> "parenthetical," and if hOTI introduces a result clause, what constitutes
>> the purpose clause? hINA alone? We certainly couldn't construe the hOTI
>> clause directly with hINA. Then we would have hINA ... hOTI, an impossible
>> construction. The correlative clauses are subordinate, and cannot in any
>> intelligible way form a purpose clause with hINA.
>>
>
> Let me translate so that my meaning might be clearer.
>
> Only live worthy of the gospel of Christ so that, whether coming and seeing
> you or being absent I hear concerning you, that you stand in one spirit
> laboring together with one mind in the faith of the gospel . . .
>
> Does this follow the nice neat categories of Greek grammar? No. Are we to
> contend that Paul and others only wrote "correct" Greek? I think not. I
> think that sometimes Paul got carried away with thoughts that popped into his
> mind. In such situations he may have forgotten his Strunk & White. It would
> be a mistake to insist that every sentence in the NT be grammatically correct.

Well, OK. If only you had said from the beginning that there really is no
complete purpose clause due to Paul's wandering mind, and that the sentence
makes no consistent grammatical sense, I would have understood. It was your
insistence that the hOTI clause somehow completed the purpose clause that
threw me off. If the purpose clause was abruptly interrupted (even though
only one word was needed to complete it), then there really is no way to
construe (grammatically or otherwise) the hOTI clause with it. It was simply
discontinued. In this case the hOTI clause (unless this too was a product of
a wandering mind) is dependent on POLITEUESQE, even though such a
consecutive usage of hOTI does not here fit the usual semantical situation
of a hOTI clause used to express result.
============

Steven Lo Vullo
Madison, WI
slovullo@mac.com
 


---
B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [jwrobie@mindspring.com]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu




This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:37:22 EDT