ἐγένετο standing for ויהי vayehi wo/subject

[Stirling Bartholomew]

Luke 1:65 Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐπὶ πάντας φόβος τοὺς περιοικοῦντας αὐτούς, καὶ ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ ὀρεινῇ τῆς Ἰουδαίας διελαλεῖτο πάντα τὰ ῥήματα ταῦτα,

Gen. 35:5 καὶ ἐξῆρεν Ισραηλ ἐκ Σικιμων, καὶ ἐγένετο φόβος θεοῦ ἐπὶ τὰς πόλεις τὰς κύκλῳ αὐτῶν, καὶ οὐ κατεδίωξαν ὀπίσω τῶν υἱῶν Ισραηλ.

ויהי חתת אלהים על־הערים
G. Wehham WBC GEN v2p320. Fear is subject.

[ἐγένετο standing for] ויהי (vayehi does not need to show concord with [φόβος] 'fear' but is a dummy-subject word

Is a dummy subject word something like, "And what happened next was..."? In other words, does ἐγένετο being a subject mean that there would be an understood verb like ἐπέπεσεν to match the ἐπὶ πάντας, rather than the "gripped", "took hold of" construstion (collocation) as in Luke 7:16 (Ἔλαβεν δὲ φόβος πάντας,).

Look at:

Acts 5:5 ἀκούων δὲ ὁ Ἁνανίας τοὺς λόγους τούτους πεσὼν ἐξέψυξεν, καὶ ἐγένετο φόβος μέγας ἐπὶ πάντας τοὺς ἀκούοντας.

φόβος is the subject of ἐγένετο, is it not? Otherwise we need "an understood verb like ἐπέπεσεν."

In Luke 2:1 ]Ἐγένετο with no subject simply introduces a new episode in the narrative.

Luke 2:1 Ἐγένετο δὲ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις ἐξῆλθεν δόγμα παρὰ Καίσαρος Αὐγούστου ἀπογράφεσθαι πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην.

[RandallButh]

The example from Gen 35 has a masculine verb with the feminine noun.
Like Gen 15:17 וַיְהִ֤י הַשֶּׁ֙מֶשׁ֙ בָּ֔אָה

[Stephen Hughes]

The example from Gen 35 has a masculine verb with the feminine noun.
Like Gen 15:17 וַיְהִ֤י הַשֶּׁ֙מֶשׁ֙ בָּ֔אָה

What is the significance of that?

[RandallButh]

It loosens that connection between the verb and what is called a 'subject'.
Normally, Hebrew marks its verbs for 3ms and 3fs subjects. the vayehi becomes more of a detached introduction like 'it happened that ...' rather than vattehi 'she became'.

[Andrew Chapman]

So, in the case of:

Luke 1:65 Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐπὶ πάντας φόβος τοὺς περιοικοῦντας αὐτούς,

we could think of φόβος as the predicate, rather than the subject? From the point of view of grammatical structure it would be like 'And there was fear' (but the meaning would be more like 'And there became fear', if we could say that.)

Andrew

[RandallButh]

But Luke is Greek, not Hebrew.

So even though it could have come from Hebrew, the current text needs to be read as Greek.

[Andrew Chapman]

OK thanks, I had jumped from your previous post on this thread to thinking you might be suggesting this for the Greek too. I have just now read your last post on the Luke 1.65 thread, where you say that φόβος is the subject.

Andrew

[Stephen Hughes]

But Luke is Greek, not Hebrew.

So even though it could have come from Hebrew, the current text needs to be read as Greek.

Just how ambiguous or rigid any of the New Testament texts are is an interesting point in itself. The more I stuff my mouth with food before I speak (or mumble when I speak) Chinese, the more likely I am to be understood. Listener switch to a he-probably-means-this type of listening. I think that "to be read as Greek" is a very broad sort of statement.

Reading the Greek of some parts of the New Testament in Greek as if it were the Greek of a native speaker writing an original text in Greek is perhaps somewhere between naivity and blood-mindedness. I think the texts in the New Testament are in many ways very difficult to read, because as soon as you introduce ambiguity or fuzziness into the analysis equation, then things get order of magnitude more difficult to deal with.

[George F Somsel]

The example from Gen 35 has a masculine verb with the feminine noun.
Like Gen 15:17 וַיְהִ֤י הַשֶּׁ֙מֶשׁ֙ בָּ֔אָה

שֶׁמֶשׁ can be either masculine or feminine which is not true for חִתָהּ which is feminine (sorry about the mappiq in the final he).

[Stirling Bartholomew]

OK thanks, I had jumped from your previous post on this thread to thinking you might be suggesting this for the Greek too. I have just now read your last post on the Luke 1.65 thread, where you say that φόβος is the subject.

Andrew

2Kings 13:21 ויהי הם קברים אישׁ והנה ראו את־הגדוד
2Kings 13:21 καὶ ἐγένετο αὐτῶν θαπτόντων τὸν ἄνδρα καὶ ἰδοὺ εἶδον τὸν μονόζωνον


See page 533 of A. Niccacci review of HATAV G. THE SEMANTICS OF ASPECT AND MODALITY

http://198.62.75.1/www1/ofm/sbf/Books/LA49/49501rec.pdf

See also S. Levinsohn Discourse Features NT GK, p. 177-180.