Need a lookup from the first edition of Bauer's Wörterbuch

[Randy Leedy]

Boy; it's been a long time since I've been on B-Greek! I think my last time was all the way back in the days when it was an email list. I hope the forum is continuing to help people like it did back then.

This is asking a bit, but I wonder whether anyone may have the first edition of Bauer's Wörterbuch and would be able to email a page scan of the page for APOLLUMI (ἀπόλλυμι if B-Greek has now transitioned to the world of Unicode Greek instead of transliterations)?

I found what looks to me like a very curious thing. All 3 English editions, in the last section of the entry, wich deals with the middle voice in the sense "be lost," cite several passages where the perfect ACTIVE participle is used, mostly with reference to sheep. The library here at BJU has only the 5th edition, and I don't find a 1st edition on Google Books, so I can't confirm that this apparent error goes all the way back to the beginning. Also, if anyone knows a reason why I should not consider this an error, I'd appreciate hearing it.

Thanks much for any help!

Randy Leedy
Professor of New Testament
Bob Jones University Seminary
Greenville, SC

[Robert Crowe]

ἀπόλλυμι has two perfect active forms. ἀπολώλεκα transitive, and ἀπόλωλα intransitive with sense 'undone, lost, ruined'.

[Randy Leedy]

Yes, but that's not the issue. The issue is that these active-voice occurrences are classified under a middle-voice heading.

Randy

[MAubrey]

I don't have access to the first edition. Like you, I only have access to the German 5th (1958).

The classification is quite curious, but maybe not entirely surprising. Perfects have common ancestry in Proto-Indo-European with the middle morphology.

Also: German voice alternations share some commonality with Greek, where actives are commonly caused event and middles are non-caused events. Since some perfects also follow that pattern, perhaps caused vs. non-caused would be a better understanding of the headings. That fits well with the glosses (both German and English).

[Randy Leedy]

Hmm. Interesting, Mike. Are you saying that Bauer's headings "Akt." and "Med." may refer to something semantic rather than to the standard parsing categories? I've never noticed this previously as any kind of pattern in BAGD and BDAG; these headings have always appeared to me to corresponded to strict parsing, and if they mean something else, it would seem that they've chosen questionable terminolgy, unless they've explained themselves in the front matter. Perhaps I've been missing something all along?

Randy

[Stephen Carlson]

Yes, but that's not the issue. The issue is that these active-voice occurrences are classified under a middle-voice heading.

I think that is the issue. If you look at the head of the entry (I'm quoting from the 2d ed. BAGD), it says: "the 2 pf. ἀπόλωλα serves as a pf. mid., ptc.ἀπολωλώς." I think the entry just deems all 2nd perfects of this verb to be a perfect middle. (This may be appropriate if this verb lacks perfect middle morphology.)

Although Bauer's first edition isn't available on-line, the next best thing is: his immediate source, Preuschen, Vollständiges griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der übrigen urchristlichen Literatur (1910), online here: https://archive.org/stream/vollstndiges ... 4/mode/1up

Preuschen simply labels what we would identify as the 2nd perfect active as the perfect passive. It's basically the same analysis, where the 2nd perfect active supplies the perfect middle.

[Randy Leedy]

Thank you, Stephen. That observation from the head section of the entry certainly clears up the matter for me. Robert, I imagine that this is what you were driving at in your post; your omission of the explicit connection to the voice issue is what kept me from seeing your point.

I've never thought in terms of a second form of the active supplying a missing middle. I suppose the aorist of ἵστημι might be viewed the same way; perhaps the 2pf of πείθω (though I'm not aware of a 1pf for that verb--perhaps just not in the NT?). I'll confess to wondering whether this is really a valid explanation for what's happening with this verb, but I don't have a better one to offer, and at any rate it does clear up what otherwise appears to be a discrepancy in Bauer's development of the entry for ἀπόλλυμι.

I've fallen into the trap that I warn my students against: to be sure you're correctly understanding some particular tidbit in BDAG, you really need to be sure you understand the entry as a whole (not that this principle applies only to BDAG!). For most words, BDAG's head section on formation is not so crucial, so I don't always attend to its details so carefully. Live and learn.

My need for the page scan from Bauer's first edition now evaporates, and I'm happy to consider the thread closed. Thanks to each one for the input.

Randy Leedy
Professor of New Testament
Bob Jones University Seminary
Greenville, SC