ECM Mark 8:35

Forum rules
Please quote the Greek text you are discussing directly in your post if it is reasonably short - do not ask people to look it up. This is not a beginner's forum, competence in Greek is assumed.
Post Reply
Matthew Longhorn
Posts: 766
Joined: November 10th, 2017, 2:48 pm
Contact:

ECM Mark 8:35

Post by Matthew Longhorn »

Evangelical Textual Criticism blog just posted about the recent release of the ECM version of Mark.
https://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blo ... es-to.html

I was going into my electronic NA28 and adding notes against each of the locations of textual changes so I know what they arehttp://egora.uni-muenster.de/intf/servi ... t_NA28.pdf I noticed that John 8:35 has been changed from ὃς γὰρ ἐὰν θέλῃ τὴν ⸂ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ⸃ σῶσαι ἀπολέσει αὐτήν Mark 8:35 (NA28) to have the aorist subjunctive απολεσῃ

Any thoughts on whether this has much of an impact on the text? How would you translate it with the subjunctive rather than the future here? something like a hortatory subjunctive "let him lose it"? Deliberative doesn't seem right here, "should he lose it?"

I seem to recall that after/around the time of the new testament the eta and the epsilon-iota diphtong were merging in sound which could cause some confusion between the subjunctive and the future. I also think I recall discussions around the future being similar in force to the subjunctive in the sense of it being tentative and in some way projecting / anticipating something.
Matthew Longhorn
Posts: 766
Joined: November 10th, 2017, 2:48 pm
Contact:

Re: ECM Mark 8:35

Post by Matthew Longhorn »

Possibly just continuing the subjunctive from the εαν earlier? It just seems odd to me due to no και in there which would help with that
Also, I recognise that a hortatory is not probable, both due to second person and context- was thinking of losing life in the context of giving it up for the Gospel a bit later. Read the verse in isolation which is a bad thing. Exhorting someone to be destroyed is not the best interpretation
S Walch
Posts: 281
Joined: June 13th, 2011, 4:27 pm
Location: Manchester, UK

Re: ECM Mark 8:35

Post by S Walch »

Matthew Longhorn wrote: August 20th, 2021, 9:41 amI seem to recall that after/around the time of the new testament the eta and the epsilon-iota diphtong were merging in sound which could cause some confusion between the subjunctive and the future.
Indeed, this is very true. There's more than a few places where η and ει could've been confused, sometimes not with any change in meaning (ἀπολύση/ἀπολύσει in Mark 6:45 for instance).

Best discussion on this is still Gignac (1970's), A Grammar of the Greek Papyri of the Roman and Byzantine Periods, - Vol 1: Phonology, pp 239-42.

He concludes this section:
Gignac p. 241 wrote:This interchange of η with ι and ει reflects the phonological development of the Greek Koine, in which the sound originally represented by η generally merged with /i/ by the second century A.D. In the later papyri, however, there is a noticeable increase in the frequency of these interchanges. They do not become as common as the interchanges of ει with ι, αι with ε, or even of οι with υ, until the Byzantine period. In light of the interchange of η and ε, the sounds represented by the symbols η, ι, and ει may not have been universally identified in Egypt during the Roman period. Bilingual interference could have been a retarding factor. In Coptic, H occurred only in accented syllables and was bivalent. In all dialects it represented an allophone of /i/ before or after sonants as well as the phoneme /ε/ (long or short). In Bohairic, it also represented an allophone of /ae/. On the other hand, the interchange of η with ε takes place mainly in the same phonetic conditions in which the interchange of ε with ι and ει occurs. 4 This indicates that η may have been only an alternative representation of /i/.
Also just to correct you (apologies), but it's not the first ἀπολέσει that's suggested as being changed to ἀπολέση, and is in fact the second one (ὃς δʼ ἂν ἀπολέσει τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ), thus bringing it into the usual ἐάν/ἄν + aorist subjunctive. See BDF §380.
Matthew Longhorn
Posts: 766
Joined: November 10th, 2017, 2:48 pm
Contact:

Re: ECM Mark 8:35

Post by Matthew Longhorn »

Thanks for the info :-)
Also - thanks for the correction on which απολεσει is being changed. That makes a LOT more sense, definitely not an apology needed situation! I just really wasn’t getting how it worked - glad it isn’t just because I was missing something totally obvious in the grammar. Problem of me attempting to work from a list online rather than the book itself.
Post Reply

Return to “New Testament”