Rod wrote: > >Somewhere I got it in my head that what I recognize in your description (at >least in part) was true in classical, but that the function of the >middle/passive forms was in process of change by koine times. Spec., that >the reflexive and/or self-interest nuance of the classical middle was >nearly gone in the hellenistic/koine Greek of the NT. The result is that >middle forms are very little different in meaning from active forms; the >passive, as you indicate, being marked in the context (hUPO, etc.) > >I cast about briefly to see where I might have picked up this concept, but >only note somewhat related ideas in Moule (24, who also refers to Brugmann >and Moulton) and Mounce (224-5). Rod's formulation above stimulated me to write the following--though I recognize that his formulation is mor e carefully done than I imply in what follows. I am writing to protest one little linguistic habit that seems to show up often in dicussions on b-greek: the simplicist identification of the Greek of the NT as [THE] Koine. I have problems with this for two reasons. (1) There is immense variety in the Greek of different writers in the NT. Compare 2 Peter and Mark, or John and Hebrews. Yet they are all writers of Koine. Yet I sometimes (2) There are many other writers who write Koine Greek: Strabo, Epictetus, Musonius Rufus, Dio of kPrusa, to name only four from the centuries just before and after Jesus of Nazareth. And one can add in the thousands of documents in the non-literary papayri. In the light of that I wonder whether one ought not more circumspectly avoid such global generalizations as Rod makes in the last sentence of the first paragraph above. Rrod and I might differ, for examaple, about whether the middle form HUPOTETAGMENA in Heb 2:8 is a true middle in form and sense. In 2 Pet 2:22 I would interpret LOUSAMENH as a true middle, as I would the QERMAINOMENOS in Mark 14:54. I would have less rouble if Rod had written that in the NT the rrequency of true middle usage of middle forms seems to be declining. But I would like to see one examine, let us say, two books of Strabo to see if the same is true there. That is, is the non-use of middle a mark, not of the Koine in general, but of the level of sophistication in Greek proficiency, marking off the writers of the NT as not members of the upper elite. [I think that the very fact that they write puts them somehow or other into a class above the lowest.] Peace, Edgar Krentz, Prof. of New Testament Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago 1100 EAST 55TH STREET CHICAGO, IL 60615 Tel: [773] 256-0752; (H) [773] 947-8105 Reply to: FFFF,0000,0000ekrentz@lstc.edu (office) orFFFF,0000,0000 emkrentz@mcs.com (home)