Re: ACTS 10:40

From: Ronald Wong (dogtoy@isgroup.net)
Date: Wed Feb 26 1997 - 09:33:06 EST


Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
> At 11:49 PM -0600 2/25/97, James C. Clardy, Jr. wrote:
> >In our lectionary group today we were discussing acts
> 10:40,particularly... EDWKEN AUTON EMFANJ GENESQAI Someone read one of
> the translations which has something like this... "...he allowed him
> to appear." ??? Does that translation carry the force of the actual
> text? Here's what I'm struggling with: Did God raise Jesus or did
> Jesus make himself become visible? I believe GENESQAI is passive thus
> indicating action received by the subject rather than vice versa. <
>
> Jim, two points:
>
> (1) One of the little points of grammar I've found myself emphasizing
> more and more frequently happens to apply here: you tentatively
> identify GENESQAI as passive, but actually it is middle. If you have
> middle endings and you don't have a clear indication that the verb in
> question is being used in a passive sense (which most simply means it
> doesn't have the hUPO + genitive agent construction, although there
> certainly are passives without a clear expression of agent), then you
> ought to assume it is middle and assign it the meaning standard for
> the middle of that verb. In this case the verb GINOMAI only appears in
> the middle voice (although the root GEN/GON/GN does appear in an
> active verb like GENNAW) and normally means "become," "come into
> being," or--particularly in the aorist, is often an equivalent of EIMI
> which doesn't have an aorist tense. Here I think "to become manifest"
> is the basic and simple sense of EMFANH GENESQAI.

Carl, sir.

isn't the GENESQAI deponent? if it is would that make any bearing what
you said...instead of it being the middle voice?



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