Reading Voelz’s Novum Testamentum 62 article “Standard/Classical Greek Constructions in the Gospel according to Mark and Their Importance for Interpretation”
Voelz starts out in his intro
I would be interested in our classicists thoughts on one of his arguments based on vocabulary - the use of ευθυς as being compatible with classical greek usageThe Greek of the Gospel according to Mark (GM), if considered at all, is generally considered to be basic at best or inelegant at worst by interpreters. Vincent Taylor, e.g., describes it as “simple and popular,” while H.B. Swete, in his standard treatment, can say that Mark’s Greek pays “little attention to elegance.” The contention of this article is that such an assessment is wrong. Specifically, we contend that Mark’s Greek is sophisticated, and that in its sophistication it makes use of verbal and grammatical features that can properly be characterized as Attic/classical Greek (CG) or “high” Koine Greek (KG).
There are a number of other areas that he touches on, included in the broader categories of morphology, syntax. Rather than dumping everything into one post I figured I would do one example at a time from each section further down in this thread (if one develops)εὐθύς. This adjective is frequently used adverbially in GM (see, e.g., 1:18; 6:25, 7:25; 11:2; 14:43), as is generally recognized. That does, however, reflect the proclivities of several classical writers. See, e.g., Xenophon, Anab. 4.3.12–13:10 εὐθὺς οὖν Ξενοφῶν αὐτός τε ἔσπενδε καὶ τοῖς νεανίσκοις ἐγχεῖν ἐκέλευε καὶ εὔχεσθαι τοῖς φήνασι θεοῖς τά τε ὀνείρατα καὶ τὸν πόρον κ’ τὰ λοιπὰ ἀγαθὰ ἐπιτελέσαι. σπείσας δ’ εὐθὺς ἦγε τοὺς νεανίσκους παρὰ τὸν Χειρίσοφον, “Then, immediately, Xenophon himself both proceeded to pour a drink offering and to order [attendants] to fill the cup for the young men and to pray to the gods who had revealed both the dreams and the river ford, and to bring to conclusion the other good things. And upon pouring the drink offering immediately he proceeded to lead the young men to Cheirisophos.”11 See also Xenophon, Anab. 4.3.23, Aeschylus, Pers. 361, Thucydides 1.1.12
A comment from his conclusion bears keeping in mind
It may be noticed that in many of the instances cited above, the occurrences in Mark’s writing that parallel standard/CG usages are found in the latter half of the Gospel… This should not be surprising. As I have argued elsewhere, the Greek profile of Mark’s Greek changes noticeably as one proceeds through the Gospel… In general, the first half is characterized by frequent occurrences of εὐθύς…