Acts 13:46

Stephen Carlson wrote:
cwconrad wrote:At any rate, the likelihood of the sense intended in the proposed Englishing of this text in Codex Bezae seems low to me; I still find it easier to think that ἀναγκαῖον was negligently omitted by the scribe.
The theory of the text of Acts that Rius-Camps & Read-Heimerdinger follow is that the Codex Bezae D text of Acts is more likely to be authorial than that of the Codex Vaticanus B text of Acts. As a result, they are wont to read as intelligible what may appear to other textual critics as scribal nonsense.
Right. I am cautions about accepting the readings (interpretations of Bezae) of Acts in Rius-Camps & Read-Heimerdinger for precisely that reason. BTW, I have another Text Critical project going on behind the scenes which will eventually see the light of day but at this time is kind of under wraps due to copyright negotiations. Wondering if there is anyone here who would like to do a little work in text of Acts in support of a worthy cause. It could be anywhere from a hours work to a big project depending on how much interest you have in it. All you would need is the ability to read the critical apparatus in UBS4. A copy of NA27 and Swanson for Acts would be nice but not essential. I have a rather full apparatus for Acts in a word file I can send you. My immediate need is for someone to simply look through the the full apparatus for Acts and mark (color highlighting or some sort of marking) any variant that is found in the UBS4 apparatus. A simple task should not take more than hour. I don't have UBS4. If anyone has an interest in a project like this send me a PM and I will give you more detail. Statistics: Posted by Stirling Bartholomew — December 13th, 2013, 5:18 pm
 
cwconrad wrote: At any rate, the likelihood of the sense intended in the proposed Englishing of this text in Codex Bezae seems low to me; I still find it easier to think that ἀναγκαῖον was negligently omitted by the scribe.
The theory of the text of Acts that Rius-Camps & Read-Heimerdinger follow is that the Codex Bezae D text of Acts is more likely to be authorial than that of the Codex Vaticanus B text of Acts. As a result, they are wont to read as intelligible what may appear to other textual critics as scribal nonsense. Statistics: Posted by Stephen Carlson — December 10th, 2013, 4:39 am
 
Stirling Bartholomew wrote: Coopers notes are almost inscrutable and at times he is more opaque than BDF which is hard to imagine. The one useful item that was mined from Cooper is that construction isn't always used of possession.
Well, leery as I am of efforts to dice up the adnominal genitive into precise and distinct semantic subcategories, so also I am dubious of cataloging dative usages too precisely. Particularly amusing (ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ) is the so-called "sentence dative" or "ethic" dative that vaguely references the concern of the person(s) indicated -- usually 2nd person and more often singular -- with whatever is being stated. That particular usage strikes me as close to the colloquial sentence punctuator common in many tongues: " ... you know ... " or "I'm tellin' you ... " Statistics: Posted by cwconrad — December 9th, 2013, 5:21 pm
 
cwconrad wrote: At any rate, the likelihood of the sense intended in the proposed Englishing of this text in Codex Bezae seems low to me; I still find it easier to think that ἀναγκαῖον was negligently omitted by the scribe.
I have no problem with that. The proposed english was just a thread starter. After reading Cooper and Rius-Camps & Read-Heimerdinger I have abandoned that proposal. I am not totally won over by Rius-Camps & Read-Heimerdinger treatment of the passage. I read samples from their first two volumes and found their exegesis "interesting" but not compelling. Coopers notes are almost inscrutable and at times he is more opaque than BDF which is hard to imagine. The one useful item that was mined from Cooper is that construction isn't always used of possession. Statistics: Posted by Stirling Bartholomew — December 9th, 2013, 4:58 pm
 
Stirling Bartholomew wrote:
Stirling Bartholomew wrote:
Tony Pope wrote:The link below to an earlier version of Rius-Camps & Read-Heimerdinger may perhaps be helpful. http://www.bsw.org/Filologia-Neotestamentaria/Vol-21-2008/The-Variant-Readings-Of-The-Western-Text-Of-The-Acts-Of-The-Apostles-Xx-Acts-13-44-52/526/article-p143.html
Thier analysis of D: [ HN + dative of person + infinitive ] "which expresses possibility" it also modifies the sense of the adverb PRWTON "you were the first for whom it was possible … to be spoken."
Another take on this is found in: Cooper (Attic Greek Prose Syntax v.1 48.3.0 pp. 275-276) says that the dative standing in the predicate of EIMI or GIGNOMAI does not strictly speaking indicate possession nor is it semantically identical to the genitive in this construction. Rather the dative may indicate nothing more than the referent stands in a "clear relation to the subject."
I'm not really so much troubled by either the dative or the πρῶτον, but rather with this usage of the verb εἶναι, especially in the imperfect indicative; this doesn't seem to be a usage of εἶναι in the sense, "it happens/comes to pass" but rather this usage of the verb is being understood here in the sense that ἔστιν = ἔξεστιν: BDAG:
7. to exist as possibility ἔστιν w. inf. foll. it is possible, one can (Περὶ ὕψους 6; Diog. L. 1, 110 ἔστιν εὑρεῖν=one can find; Just., A I, 59, 10 ἔστι ταῦτα ἀκοῦσαι καὶ μαθεῖν; D. 42, 3 ἰδεῖν al.; Mel., P. 19, 127); neg. οὐκ ἔστιν νῦν λέγειν it is not possible to speak at this time Hb 9:5. οὐκ ἔστιν φαγεῖν it is impossible to eat 1 Cor 11:20 (so Hom. et al.; UPZ 70, 23 [152/151 BC] οὐκ ἔστι ἀνακύψαι με πώποτε . . . ὑπὸ τῆς αἰσχύνης; 4 Macc 13:5; Wsd 5:10; Sir 14:16; 18:6; EpJer 49 al.; EpArist 163; Jos., Ant. 2, 335; Ath. 22, 3 ἔστιν εἰπεῖν).
LSJ:
VI. ἔστι impers., c. inf., it is possible, ἔστι γὰρ ἀμφοτέροισιν ὀνείδεα μυθήσασθαι Il.20.246; ἔστι μὲν εὕδειν, ἔστι δὲ τερπομένοισιν ἀκούειν Od.15.392; εἴ τί πού ἐστι (sc. πιθέσθαι) 4.193; τοιάδε .. ἐστὶν ἀκοῦσαι A.Pr.1055 (anap.); ἔστι τεκμήρια ὁρᾶν X.An.3.2.13, cf. Ar.Ra.1163, Aeschin.3.105, D.18.272, Arist.Ath.53.6, etc.; so in opt., and subj., μυρία ἂν εἴη λέγειν Pl.Plt.271e; ὅπως ἂν ᾖ δρᾶν IG2.1054.91: more freq. in neg. clauses, Il.6.267, etc.; folld. by ὥστε c. inf., S.Ph.656: c. acc. et inf., ἁδόντα δʼ εἴη με τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς ὁμιλεῖν Pi.P.2.96; ἔστιν ἐκπεσεῖν ἀρχῆς Δία A.Pr.757: sts. not impers. in this sense, θάλασσα δʼ οὐκέτʼ ἦν ἰδεῖν Id.Pers.419. b. ἔστω in argument, let it be granted, ἔστω τοῦτο ἀληθὲς εἶναι D.H.Comp.25; ἔστω σοι τοῦθʼ οὕτως Plu.2.987b; ἔστω εἶναί τινα τοιοῦτον D.Chr.74.24.
At any rate, the likelihood of the sense intended in the proposed Englishing of this text in Codex Bezae seems low to me; I still find it easier to think that ἀναγκαῖον was negligently omitted by the scribe. Statistics: Posted by cwconrad — December 9th, 2013, 6:47 am
 
Stirling Bartholomew wrote:
Tony Pope wrote:The link below to an earlier version of Rius-Camps & Read-Heimerdinger may perhaps be helpful. http://www.bsw.org/Filologia-Neotestamentaria/Vol-21-2008/The-Variant-Readings-Of-The-Western-Text-Of-The-Acts-Of-The-Apostles-Xx-Acts-13-44-52/526/article-p143.html
Thier analysis of D: [ HN + dative of person + infinitive ] "which expresses possibility" it also modifies the sense of the adverb PRWTON "you were the first for whom it was possible … to be spoken."
Another take on this is found in: Cooper (Attic Greek Prose Syntax v.1 48.3.0 pp. 275-276) says that the dative standing in the predicate of EIMI or GIGNOMAI does not strictly speaking indicate possession nor is it semantically identical to the genitive in this construction. Rather the dative may indicate nothing more than the referent stands in a "clear relation to the subject." Statistics: Posted by Stirling Bartholomew — December 8th, 2013, 3:20 pm
Thanks, yes to SB too, now I can open it. The article's URL needs that final "l". Statistics: Posted by Stephen Hughes — December 7th, 2013, 8:21 pm
 
Tony Pope wrote: The link below to an earlier version of Rius-Camps & Read-Heimerdinger may perhaps be helpful. http://www.bsw.org/Filologia-Neotestamentaria/Vol-21-2008/The-Variant-Readings-Of-The-Western-Text-Of-The-Acts-Of-The-Apostles-Xx-Acts-13-44-52/526/article-p143.html
Many thanks. Saved me a trip to SPU library. Thier analysis of D: [ HN + dative of person + infinitive ] "which expresses possibility" it also modifies the sense of the adverb PRWTON "you were the first for whom it was possible … to be spoken." This is very useful. Thanks again. Statistics: Posted by Stirling Bartholomew — December 7th, 2013, 6:19 pm
The link below to an earlier version of Rius-Camps & Read-Heimerdinger may perhaps be helpful. http://www.bsw.org/Filologia-Neotestamentaria/Vol-21-2008/The-Variant-Readings-Of-The-Western-Text-Of-The-Acts-Of-The-Apostles-Xx-Acts-13-44-52/526/article-p143.htm Statistics: Posted by Tony Pope — December 7th, 2013, 4:45 pm
All I am suggesting is that HN is not functioning in Bezae as a Copula. I don't see any problem with the dative. Perfectly normal use of the dative to mark the persons who were experiencers of the action. Statistics: Posted by Stirling Bartholomew — December 6th, 2013, 3:35 pm
 
Stirling Bartholomew wrote:
cwconrad wrote:I don't have any of those resources at hand either, but I'm hard put to find this expression, ϋμειν πρωτον ην λαληθηναι τον λον του θυ , meaningful Greek at all. Without any predicate adjective I would expect ὑμῖν ἦν to mean something like, "was your responsibility"/"fell to you" -- but an active infinitive (λαλῆσαι) would seem more appropriate for that, and, of course, that meaning doesn't fit with the rest of the verse. I don't see any way to understand this text as meaningful as it stands.
Well Ropes didn't mark it with daggers so I am assuming he found it at least marginally coherent. If we take ἦν as equivalent to ἐγένετο L&N 1304, 1307 to happen, then we don't need a predicate adjective. Culy & Parsons (Acts, p258) suggest that ἦν as equivalent to ἐγένετο where the infinitive clause functions as the subject of ἦν. However they are dealing with the Alexandrian reading not Bezae and the existence of the predicate adjective makes a difference as you have pointed out. What I am suggesting is just a "working hypothesis" for making sense out of it "as it stands" in Bezae. Anyone else have a suggestion about ϋμειν πρωτον ην λαληθηναι τον λο<γο>ν του θεου ? Thanks, CSB
I'd still like to know what others think about this. After looking at L&N, I'm not sure about your references; perhaps you meant 13.104 and 13.107. I find:
13.104 εἰμίd: to occur, of an event — ‘to be, to happen.’ μὴ ἐν τῇ ἑορτῇ, μήποτε ἔσται θόρυβος τοῦ λαοῦ ‘we must not do it during the feast in order that there may not be a riot’ Mk 14:2.
and
13.107 γίνομαιd; ἐπιγίνομαι: to happen, with the implication that what happens is different from a previous state — ‘to happen, to occur, to come to be.’ γίνομαιd: γίνεται λαῖλαψ μεγάλη ἀνέμου ‘a strong wind came up’ Mk 4:37. ἐπιγίνομαι: μετὰ μίαν ἡμέραν ἐπιγενομένου νότου ‘the next day a wind came up from the south’ Ac 28:13.
I don't see either of these as calling for an acc. + infinitive as the subject of ἦν or ἐγένετο or indicating anything that is really parallel to the supposed construction in the text cited from Codex Bezae. Moreover, it seems to me that ὑμῖν before the verb should indicate the person(s) to whom the event occurred -- i.e. ὑμῖν should be construed with ἦν, not with λαληθῆναι. The formulation in Codex Bezae still looks fishy to me; I think the scribe accidentally omitted the predicate adjective ἁναγκαῖον. Statistics: Posted by cwconrad — December 6th, 2013, 3:07 pm
 
cwconrad wrote: I don't have any of those resources at hand either, but I'm hard put to find this expression, ϋμειν πρωτον ην λαληθηναι τον λον του θυ , meaningful Greek at all. Without any predicate adjective I would expect ὑμῖν ἦν to mean something like, "was your responsibility"/"fell to you" -- but an active infinitive (λαλῆσαι) would seem more appropriate for that, and, of course, that meaning doesn't fit with the rest of the verse. I don't see any way to understand this text as meaningful as it stands.
Well Ropes didn't mark it with daggers so I am assuming he found it at least marginally coherent. If we take ἦν as equivalent to ἐγένετο L&N 1304, 1307 to happen, then we don't need a predicate adjective. Culy & Parsons (Acts, p258) suggest that ἦν as equivalent to ἐγένετο where the infinitive clause functions as the subject of ἦν. However they are dealing with the Alexandrian reading not Bezae and the existence of the predicate adjective makes a difference as you have pointed out. What I am suggesting is just a "working hypothesis" for making sense out of it "as it stands" in Bezae. Anyone else have a suggestion about ϋμειν πρωτον ην λαληθηναι τον λο<γο>ν του θεου ? Thanks, CSB Statistics: Posted by Stirling Bartholomew — December 6th, 2013, 1:08 pm

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