Dispute about σήμερον in the syntax of Luke 23:43

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Brian Gould
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Dispute about σήμερον in the syntax of Luke 23:43

Post by Brian Gould »

καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ: ἀμήν σοι λέγω, σήμερον μετ' ἐμοῦ ἔσῃ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ (Luke 23:43)

Let me preface my question by stating I am fully aware of the “No exegesis” rule here at B-Greek. I trust I am not infringing this rule by asking whether, in the view of people having a specialist knowledge of Biblical Greek, a certain well-known exegetical interpretation of this verse can be considered as a syntactical possibility (however remote) or only as an impossibility that should rightly be dismissed as mere special pleading.

The question, plainly stated, is this: Which verb is σήμερον modifying? ἔσῃ, “You will be with me today,” or λέγω, “I am telling you today”?
Barry Hofstetter
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Re: Dispute about σήμερον in the syntax of Luke 23:43

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Greek specialists as opposed to generalists? :) However, this question comes up a lot mainly because the JW's popularized the "λέγω interpretation." But no. My view is that Ἀμήν σοι λέγω is a stock phrase, and to modify λέγω σήμερον would have to be inside that phrase, not following it. Therefore it's best taken with ἔσῃ.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Daniel Semler
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Re: Dispute about σήμερον in the syntax of Luke 23:43

Post by Daniel Semler »

Brian Gould wrote: July 16th, 2021, 11:11 am καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ: ἀμήν σοι λέγω, σήμερον μετ' ἐμοῦ ἔσῃ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ (Luke 23:43)

Let me preface my question by stating I am fully aware of the “No exegesis” rule here at B-Greek. I trust I am not infringing this rule by asking whether, in the view of people having a specialist knowledge of Biblical Greek, a certain well-known exegetical interpretation of this verse can be considered as a syntactical possibility (however remote) or only as an impossibility that should rightly be dismissed as mere special pleading.

The question, plainly stated, is this: Which verb is σήμερον modifying? ἔσῃ, “You will be with me today,” or λέγω, “I am telling you today”?
I have never thought of this this way so I went and looked it up in the NT. There are a lot of occurrences, all in the gospels. But this one is odd. Almost all cases are structured: ἀμήν (once or twice) λέγω σοι/ὑμίν. But this one places the verb last. Luke doesn't use this expression as much as the other gospels either but this is the only occurrence in the NA 28 I see the verb final leaving it adjacent to σήμερον. That's pretty thin to hang something on but it is also odd if this is a fixed expression that the order of two words would be transposed. Interestingly the EPT (Ecumenical Patriarchal Text) has it in the more common form.

“καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· ἀμὴν λέγω σοι, σήμερον μετ’ ἐμοῦ ἔσῃ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ.”
(Luke 23:43 Greek New Testament: Ecumenical Patriarchal Text)
https://accordance.bible/link/read/GNT-EPT#Luke_23:43

My goto ancient text (Sinaiticus) renders it in the common form too. Of course the Vaticanus does it the way the NA 28 does. Oh well I'm no text critic but there you go.

Hmmmm..... no idea what any of that is worth ..... having muddied the waters now

Thx
D
Brian Gould
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Re: Dispute about σήμερον in the syntax of Luke 23:43

Post by Brian Gould »

Hi Daniel. This is getting curiouser and curiouser. Your post prompted me to look at the collation on Alan Bunning's website. He lists nine MSS for this verse. Four of them have ἀμήν λέγω σοι, against three for ἀμήν σοι λέγω, while the other two omit these words entirely. What is going on here?

https://greekcntr.org/manuscripts/index ... 5#42023043
S Walch
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Re: Dispute about σήμερον in the syntax of Luke 23:43

Post by S Walch »

Well if we wanna look at this from a TC perspective, NA28 gives the following as reading λέγω σοι:

A C2 K W Γ Δ Θ Ψ 070 ƒ1.13 33. 565. 579. 700. 892. 1241. 1424. 2542. lectionary 844, Majority Text, Latin, Syriac, (Sahidic mss, Boharic pt)

Only the following have σοι λέγω:

𝔓75 B C* L, Sahidic mss, Boharic pt

Tischendorf gives a few extra for λέγω σοι:

א Q R X Λ Π

If the original was λέγω σοι, one is at a loss as to why a few manuscripts would change such a common formula, as nothing homoeoteleuton or homoeoarchon jumps out as to how σοι could move places so easily. As C (Codex Ephraemi) originally read σοι λέγω and was then corrected to λέγω σοι, this would give evidence of λέγω σοι being a correction to bring it in line with the common formula λέγω σοι/ὑμῖν, rather than σοι λέγω being an error of sorts repeated by several copyists.

Codex Regius (L) makes it clear enough the copyist saw σήμερον as agreeing with what follows rather than precedes, by inserting ὃτι before it: image of L with Luke 23:43 (2nd Columns, lines 11-12).

It's probably best to talk of this verse as if you were dealing with σοι λέγω as what Luke wrote, as opposed to λέγω σοι :)
S Walch
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Re: Dispute about σήμερον in the syntax of Luke 23:43

Post by S Walch »

To add something else to the discussion Metzger (A Textual Commentary) has this to say:
The Curetonian Syriac rearranges the order of words, joining σήμερον, not with μετʼ ἐμοῦ ἔσῃ, but with Ἀμήν σοι λέγω (“Truly I say to you today that with me you will be …”).
Evidently, the idea of taking σήμερον with the preceding clause rather than the following goes back far enough for it to have affected a Syriac translation (circa 5th century CE for the Curetonian Syriac; at least according to Wikipedia :) ).
Eeli Kaikkonen
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Re: Dispute about σήμερον in the syntax of Luke 23:43

Post by Eeli Kaikkonen »

So it looks like we can't be 100% certain about what Luke meant (i.e. what he expected the readers to understand Jesus saying) unless we go to textual criticism first, which we can't do here. We could only take different readings and try to analyze them syntactically, trying to find out if it's possible to interpret some reading in certain way or not.

Constituent order might give light to it, but I wouldn't expect any easy exact rules to apply here.
Jason Hare
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Re: Dispute about σήμερον in the syntax of Luke 23:43

Post by Jason Hare »

You've generated a really interesting discussion, @Brian Gould, and managed to avoid pushing it over the line where discussions cause trouble. Great job!

Just throwing my hat in with reading it as σήμερον μετ᾿ ἐμοῦ ἔσῃ while appreciating the ambiguity.
Jason A. Hare
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Daniel Semler
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Re: Dispute about σήμερον in the syntax of Luke 23:43

Post by Daniel Semler »

Eeli Kaikkonen wrote: July 17th, 2021, 4:10 pm So it looks like we can't be 100% certain about what Luke meant (i.e. what he expected the readers to understand Jesus saying) unless we go to textual criticism first, which we can't do here. We could only take different readings and try to analyze them syntactically, trying to find out if it's possible to interpret some reading in certain way or not.

Constituent order might give light to it, but I wouldn't expect any easy exact rules to apply here.
I would argue TC would not get you to meaning. It could at the very best get you to what was originally written but I doubt it would do that with certainty. I only ended up looking at various witnesses because of this peculiar word order. Whether it is significant is a matter for considerable debate it would seem for a long time.

I guess if I were to do this I would start by looking at the cases of this expression AND the surrounding text, and see what that suggests, because I am not sure that the word order change here is significant, or if so, what it would mean. I wouldn't be at all surprised if such a study already exists.

Thx
D
Jean Putmans
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Re: Dispute about σήμερον in the syntax of Luke 23:43

Post by Jean Putmans »

A Look at Willker's page http://www.willker.de/wie/TCG/
(commentary Luke) might be helpful.

He also mentions the discussion of the Churchfathers on this problem, as well as the Gospel of Nicodemus (4-5th CE).

Regards
Jean
Jean Putmans
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gotischebibel.blogspot.com
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