Philippians 1:27

[bible passage=”Philippians 1:27″]

Ladies and Gentlemen: I am perplexed and perhaps a little cynical about the concept of “attraction” in Koine Greek. One example [among several] occurs in Philippians 1:27-28 where, in Mounce’s Graded Reader, he quotes Fee (NICNT) saying that the hHTIS in v28 refers back to the preceding clause refers back to the whole preceding clause (admittedly I do not have Fee’s work, I am quoting Mounce quoting Fee) and is in the feminine because it is “attracted” to the gender of ENDEIXIS hHTIS ESTIN AUTOIS ENDEIXIS Preceding clause: 1:27-28: THi PISTEI TOU EUANGGELIOU KAI MH PTUROMENOI EN MEDENI hUPO TWN ANTIKEIMENWN hHTIS… [trust the transliteration attains the minimal acceptable standard] I have consulted my grammars — I even hoped, after my recent questions whether A.T. Robertson might rise to the occasion, since there is precious little in any of my other works on this subject. Alas he sits on the table in accordance with Lightman’s suggestion, awaiting a job holding down papers in the next tornado.

So is this thing called “attraction” apparent or real? Perhaps I am uncomfortable with the terminology — it is as if the words have a mind of their own rather than a writer deliberately choosing the appropriate and grammatically correct lexical form? If attraction is real, what purpose does it serve? Or is “attraction” a catch-all when all logical, semantic, and grammatical attempts to explain the case of a word have failed? “oh it is not a,b,c,d therefore it is ‘attraction'”

Any references, comments, clues welcomed!

Rgds Steve Baldwin stbaldwi@hotmail.com

— home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/ mailing list @lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/

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12 thoughts on “Philippians 1:27

  1. Kevin Riley says:

    Perhaps if you looked at some examples of how ‘attraction’ works in English it might make more sense in Greek. As a process, it is not unique to Greek.

    Kevin Riley

    href=”mailto:stbaldwi@hotmail.com”>stbaldwi@hotmail.com href=”mailto:B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org”>B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org — B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek B-Greek mailing list B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

  2. George F Somsel says:

    Robertson has considerable to say regarding attraction, but it is scattered about.  I will give a couple of his comments.  10. Attraction of the Relative. A word only is needed about the attraction of the relative, a matter treated properly in the chapter on Pronouns, which see. Here it may only be noted that the genitive (as of other oblique cases) of the relative sometimes appears with a verb when the case is due, not to the verb, but to the antecedent. Thus we note

    Regarding ὅστις he states  6. Case. There is little here that calls for comment. We do not have attraction or incorporation. As a matter of fact only three cases occur (nom., gen., acc.). The stereotyped phrase p 729 with ἕωςand the genitive, ἕως ὅτου, occurs five times. Cf. Mt. 5:25; Lu. 12:50 (Luke three times, Matthew and John once each). This is the only form of the shortened inflection. The LXX once (2 Macc. 5:10) has ἥστινος, elsewhere ὅτου. The accusative is found in the N. T. only in the neuter singular ὅτι(absent from modern Greek). But see (note 6, p. 728) occasional ὅντιναand ἥντιναin the papyri. So Lu. 10:35, ὅτι ἂν προσδαπανήσῃς. Cf. ὅτι ἄν, Jo. 2:5; 14:13; 15:16; ὅτι ἐάν, Mk. 6:23; 1 Cor. 16:2 f.; Col. 3:17; ὅτιalone, Jo. 8:25; Ac. 9:6. The other examples are all in the nominative. In Ac. 9:6 the clause is nominative. (pp 728-29)

     george gfsomsel

    … search for truth, hear truth, learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth, defend the truth till death.

    – Jan Hus _________

    ________________________________ Sent: Fri, December 3, 2010 9:19:46 PM

    Ladies and Gentlemen: I am perplexed and perhaps a little cynical about the concept of “attraction” in Koine Greek. One example [among several] occurs in Philippians 1:27-28 where, in Mounce’s Graded Reader, he quotes Fee (NICNT) saying that the hHTIS in v28 refers back to the preceding clause refers back to the whole preceding clause (admittedly I do not have Fee’s work, I am quoting Mounce quoting Fee) and is in the feminine because it is “attracted” to the gender of ENDEIXIS hHTIS ESTIN AUTOIS ENDEIXIS Preceding clause: 1:27-28: THi PISTEI TOU EUANGGELIOU KAI MH PTUROMENOI EN MEDENI hUPO TWN ANTIKEIMENWN hHTIS… [trust the transliteration attains the minimal acceptable standard] I have consulted my grammars — I even hoped, after my recent questions whether A.T. Robertson might rise to the occasion, since there is precious little in any of my other works on this subject. Alas he sits on the table in accordance with Lightman’s suggestion, awaiting a job holding down papers in the next tornado.

    So is this thing called “attraction” apparent or real? Perhaps I am uncomfortable with the terminology — it is as if the words have a mind of their own rather than a writer deliberately choosing the appropriate and grammatically correct lexical form? If attraction is real, what purpose does it serve? Or is “attraction” a catch-all when all logical, semantic, and grammatical attempts to explain the case of a word have failed? “oh it is not a,b,c,d therefore it is ‘attraction'”

    Any references, comments, clues welcomed!

    Rgds Steve Baldwin stbaldwi@hotmail.com

                            — B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek B-Greek mailing list B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek περὶ πάντων ὧν ἐποίησεν(Lu. 3:19), an idiom common in Luke, but rare elsewhere, as ἀστέρων οὓς εἶδες(Rev. 1:20).  (p 512) 

    — B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek B-Greek mailing list B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

  3. Mark Lightman says:

    Hi, Stephen,

    I have the same subjective reaction as you do. I am repelled by attraction. I understand why people feel the concept is needed. Relative pronouns generally have antecedents, and they generally agree in gender with those antecedents, and when they don’t, people feel they have to right to know why they don’t. Attraction is as good an explanation as any, but I agree that there is something vaguely creepy about the term. All things being equal, becoming the gender you are attracted to doesn’t make a lot of sense. I wonder what the Greeks themselves called it?

    In other words, Paul could have written ὅ τι (hO TI) instead of ἥστις, or, for that matter, he could have written και τουτο OR και αυτη. A linguist might say that the neuter would be the “unmarked” form, and that attraction is marked, and so adds emphasis. What’s good about saying that something adds emphasis is that there is no way to prove or disprove it.

    I am 100% sure that if you asked Paul why he sometimes allows his words to be attracted and at other times not, he would say “I don’t know. It just sounded better to say it this way.”

    Generally, when people talk about attraction, they talk about a relative being attracted to the case of its prior antecedent, so what you have in Phil 1:27-28 is actually reverse attraction, I think, which is even a more unattractive term.

    “No, good mother. Here’s metal more attractive.”

    Mark L

    FWSFOROS MARKOS

    ________________________________ Sent: Fri, December 3, 2010 9:19:46 PM

    Ladies and Gentlemen: I am perplexed and perhaps a little cynical about the concept of “attraction” in Koine Greek. One example [among several] occurs in Philippians 1:27-28 where, in Mounce’s Graded Reader, he quotes Fee (NICNT) saying that the hHTIS in v28 refers back to the preceding clause refers back to the whole preceding clause (admittedly I do not have Fee’s work, I am quoting Mounce quoting Fee) and is in the feminine because it is “attracted” to the gender of ENDEIXIS hHTIS ESTIN AUTOIS ENDEIXIS Preceding clause: 1:27-28: THi PISTEI TOU EUANGGELIOU KAI MH PTUROMENOI EN MEDENI hUPO TWN ANTIKEIMENWN hHTIS… [trust the transliteration attains the minimal acceptable standard] I have consulted my grammars — I even hoped, after my recent questions whether A.T. Robertson might rise to the occasion, since there is precious little in any of my other works on this subject. Alas he sits on the table in accordance with Lightman’s suggestion, awaiting a job holding down papers in the next tornado.

    So is this thing called “attraction” apparent or real? Perhaps I am uncomfortable with the terminology — it is as if the words have a mind of their own rather than a writer deliberately choosing the appropriate and grammatically correct lexical form? If attraction is real, what purpose does it serve? Or is “attraction” a catch-all when all logical, semantic, and grammatical attempts to explain the case of a word have failed? “oh it is not a,b,c,d therefore it is ‘attraction'”

    Any references, comments, clues welcomed!

    Rgds Steve Baldwin stbaldwi@hotmail.com

    — B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek B-Greek mailing list B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

    — B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek B-Greek mailing list B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

  4. Stephen Baldwin says:

    Hello Kevin: My original [slightly facetious] response to you was intended for the wider community rather than moving the conversation off-list 😉 Trust it is OK to re-engage the rest of the list [if indeed anyone else out there is interested in engaging!]. If I may be so bold as to query your example, is it a real case of “attraction”? In your example, “what” is a relative pronoun isn’t it? And if so, can be either singular or plural can it not since in English we plainly do not have distinct singular/plural forms of “what”?

    As I understand it, is “attraction” simply evident in gender/case choices or does it occur [in NTG] in other forms?

    Iver and George: Tak/Thanks for your responses. I will chase up your suggestions.

    Rgds Steve [Baldwin] stbaldwi@hotmail.com

    Message body

    I was trying to think of an example when I came across one in an email this morning. The subject was initially the importance of the extended family to individuals in some parts of the world. Moving on to what mattered to the extended family, one person wrote “What was most important to the extended family were alliances with other families for mutual defense.” This is a good example of the use of ‘were’ for ‘was’ because of the ‘attraction’ of the following plural noun. The basic thought was “alliances were needed …”, and this may have caused ‘confusion’ momentarily in the mind of the writer, resulting in the incorrect “What was needed were alliances …”. Rather than two ‘was’es, both dependent on ‘what’, the second ‘was’ is replaced by ‘were’ because of ‘attraction’ to the following plural noun. I suspect we have all done similar things without even noticing. Greek provides more opportunities than English by encoding not only number, but also gender.

    Kevin

    On 4/12/2010 3:50 PM, Stephen Baldwin wrote:

    Hello Kevin:

    That was almost a useful reply 😉

    Would you care to expound further?

    Rgds

    SteveB

    > Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2010 15:47:58 +1100

    > From: klriley@alphalink.com.au

    > To: b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org

    > Subject: Re: [B-Greek] The Unattractiveness of Attraction?

    >

    > Perhaps if you looked at some examples of how ‘attraction’ works in

    > English it might make more sense in Greek. As a process, it is not

    > unique to Greek.

    >

    > Kevin Riley

    >

    > On 4/12/2010 3:19 PM, Stephen Baldwin wrote:

    > > Ladies and Gentlemen:

    > > I am perplexed and perhaps a little cynical about the concept of “attraction” in Koine Greek.

    > > One example [among several] occurs in Philippians 1:27-28 where, in Mounce’s Graded Reader, he quotes Fee (NICNT) saying that the hHTIS in v28 refers back to the preceding clause refers back to the whole preceding clause (admittedly I do not have Fee’s work, I am quoting Mounce quoting Fee) and is in the feminine because it is “attracted” to the gender of ENDEIXIS

    > > hHTIS ESTIN AUTOIS ENDEIXIS

    > > Preceding clause:

    > > 1:27-28: THi PISTEI TOU EUANGGELIOU KAI MH PTUROMENOI EN MEDENI hUPO TWN ANTIKEIMENWN hHTIS…

    > > [trust the transliteration attains the minimal acceptable standard]

    > > I have consulted my grammars — I even hoped, after my recent questions whether A.T. Robertson might rise to the occasion, since there is precious little in any of my other works on this subject. Alas he sits on the table in accordance with Lightman’s suggestion, awaiting a job holding down papers in the next tornado.

    > >

    > > So is this thing called “attraction” apparent or real? Perhaps I am uncomfortable with the terminology — it is as if the words have a mind of their own rather than a writer deliberately choosing the appropriate and grammatically correct lexical form? If attraction is real, what purpose does it serve?

    > > Or is “attraction” a catch-all when all logical, semantic, and grammatical attempts to explain the case of a word have failed?

    > > “oh it is not a,b,c,d therefore it is ‘attraction'”

    > >

    > > Any references, comments, clues welcomed!

    > >

    > > Rgds

    > > Steve Baldwin

    > > stbaldwi@hotmail.com

    > >

    > >

    > >

    > >

    > > —

    > > B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek

    > > B-Greek mailing list

    > > B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org

    > > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

    > >

    > >

    > >

    > —

    > B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek

    > B-Greek mailing list

    > B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org

    > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

    — B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek B-Greek mailing list B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

  5. Leonard Jayawardena says:

    Mark L. wrote:

    “Generally, when people talk about attraction, they talk about a relative being attracted to the case of its prior antecedent, so what you have in Phil 1:27-28 is actually reverse attraction, I think, which is even a more unattractive term.”

    LJ:

    Actually, what we have in Phil. 1:27-28 is attraction of the relative to the gender of the predicate. “Inverse attraction” (or “reverse attaction,” as you put it), is the assimilation of the gender of the antecedent to that of the relative. Normally, it is the other way round–hence the term “inverse attraction.”

    An example is Ps. 118:22 (LXX), quoted in Mt. 21:42; Mk. 12:10 and Lk. 17:

    LIQON, hON APEDOKIMASAN hOI OIKODOMOUNTES, hOUTOS EGENHQH EIS KEFALHN GWNIAS.

    Normal grammar would require LIQOS (nominative), hON …, which is exactly what we have in 1 Peter 2:7: LIQOS, hON APEDOKIMASAN hOI OIKODOMOUNTES ….

    Leonard Jayawardena

    — B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek B-Greek mailing list B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

  6. Kevin Riley says:

    Perhaps if you looked at some examples of how ‘attraction’ works in English it might make more sense in Greek. As a process, it is not unique to Greek.

    Kevin Riley

    href=”mailto:stbaldwi@hotmail.com”>stbaldwi@hotmail.com href=”mailto:B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org”>B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org — B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek B-Greek mailing list B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

  7. George F Somsel says:

    Robertson has considerable to say regarding attraction, but it is scattered about.  I will give a couple of his comments.  10. Attraction of the Relative. A word only is needed about the attraction of the relative, a matter treated properly in the chapter on Pronouns, which see. Here it may only be noted that the genitive (as of other oblique cases) of the relative sometimes appears with a verb when the case is due, not to the verb, but to the antecedent. Thus we note

    Regarding ὅστις he states  6. Case. There is little here that calls for comment. We do not have attraction or incorporation. As a matter of fact only three cases occur (nom., gen., acc.). The stereotyped phrase p 729 with ἕωςand the genitive, ἕως ὅτου, occurs five times. Cf. Mt. 5:25; Lu. 12:50 (Luke three times, Matthew and John once each). This is the only form of the shortened inflection. The LXX once (2 Macc. 5:10) has ἥστινος, elsewhere ὅτου. The accusative is found in the N. T. only in the neuter singular ὅτι(absent from modern Greek). But see (note 6, p. 728) occasional ὅντιναand ἥντιναin the papyri. So Lu. 10:35, ὅτι ἂν προσδαπανήσῃς. Cf. ὅτι ἄν, Jo. 2:5; 14:13; 15:16; ὅτι ἐάν, Mk. 6:23; 1 Cor. 16:2 f.; Col. 3:17; ὅτιalone, Jo. 8:25; Ac. 9:6. The other examples are all in the nominative. In Ac. 9:6 the clause is nominative. (pp 728-29)

     george gfsomsel

    … search for truth, hear truth, learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth, defend the truth till death.

    – Jan Hus _________

    ________________________________ Sent: Fri, December 3, 2010 9:19:46 PM

    Ladies and Gentlemen: I am perplexed and perhaps a little cynical about the concept of “attraction” in Koine Greek. One example [among several] occurs in Philippians 1:27-28 where, in Mounce’s Graded Reader, he quotes Fee (NICNT) saying that the hHTIS in v28 refers back to the preceding clause refers back to the whole preceding clause (admittedly I do not have Fee’s work, I am quoting Mounce quoting Fee) and is in the feminine because it is “attracted” to the gender of ENDEIXIS hHTIS ESTIN AUTOIS ENDEIXIS Preceding clause: 1:27-28: THi PISTEI TOU EUANGGELIOU KAI MH PTUROMENOI EN MEDENI hUPO TWN ANTIKEIMENWN hHTIS… [trust the transliteration attains the minimal acceptable standard] I have consulted my grammars — I even hoped, after my recent questions whether A.T. Robertson might rise to the occasion, since there is precious little in any of my other works on this subject. Alas he sits on the table in accordance with Lightman’s suggestion, awaiting a job holding down papers in the next tornado.

    So is this thing called “attraction” apparent or real? Perhaps I am uncomfortable with the terminology — it is as if the words have a mind of their own rather than a writer deliberately choosing the appropriate and grammatically correct lexical form? If attraction is real, what purpose does it serve? Or is “attraction” a catch-all when all logical, semantic, and grammatical attempts to explain the case of a word have failed? “oh it is not a,b,c,d therefore it is ‘attraction'”

    Any references, comments, clues welcomed!

    Rgds Steve Baldwin stbaldwi@hotmail.com

                            — B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek B-Greek mailing list B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek περὶ πάντων ὧν ἐποίησεν(Lu. 3:19), an idiom common in Luke, but rare elsewhere, as ἀστέρων οὓς εἶδες(Rev. 1:20).  (p 512) 

    — B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek B-Greek mailing list B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

  8. Mark Lightman says:

    Hi, Stephen,

    I have the same subjective reaction as you do. I am repelled by attraction. I understand why people feel the concept is needed. Relative pronouns generally have antecedents, and they generally agree in gender with those antecedents, and when they don’t, people feel they have to right to know why they don’t. Attraction is as good an explanation as any, but I agree that there is something vaguely creepy about the term. All things being equal, becoming the gender you are attracted to doesn’t make a lot of sense. I wonder what the Greeks themselves called it?

    In other words, Paul could have written ὅ τι (hO TI) instead of ἥστις, or, for that matter, he could have written και τουτο OR και αυτη. A linguist might say that the neuter would be the “unmarked” form, and that attraction is marked, and so adds emphasis. What’s good about saying that something adds emphasis is that there is no way to prove or disprove it.

    I am 100% sure that if you asked Paul why he sometimes allows his words to be attracted and at other times not, he would say “I don’t know. It just sounded better to say it this way.”

    Generally, when people talk about attraction, they talk about a relative being attracted to the case of its prior antecedent, so what you have in Phil 1:27-28 is actually reverse attraction, I think, which is even a more unattractive term.

    “No, good mother. Here’s metal more attractive.”

    Mark L

    FWSFOROS MARKOS

    ________________________________ Sent: Fri, December 3, 2010 9:19:46 PM

    Ladies and Gentlemen: I am perplexed and perhaps a little cynical about the concept of “attraction” in Koine Greek. One example [among several] occurs in Philippians 1:27-28 where, in Mounce’s Graded Reader, he quotes Fee (NICNT) saying that the hHTIS in v28 refers back to the preceding clause refers back to the whole preceding clause (admittedly I do not have Fee’s work, I am quoting Mounce quoting Fee) and is in the feminine because it is “attracted” to the gender of ENDEIXIS hHTIS ESTIN AUTOIS ENDEIXIS Preceding clause: 1:27-28: THi PISTEI TOU EUANGGELIOU KAI MH PTUROMENOI EN MEDENI hUPO TWN ANTIKEIMENWN hHTIS… [trust the transliteration attains the minimal acceptable standard] I have consulted my grammars — I even hoped, after my recent questions whether A.T. Robertson might rise to the occasion, since there is precious little in any of my other works on this subject. Alas he sits on the table in accordance with Lightman’s suggestion, awaiting a job holding down papers in the next tornado.

    So is this thing called “attraction” apparent or real? Perhaps I am uncomfortable with the terminology — it is as if the words have a mind of their own rather than a writer deliberately choosing the appropriate and grammatically correct lexical form? If attraction is real, what purpose does it serve? Or is “attraction” a catch-all when all logical, semantic, and grammatical attempts to explain the case of a word have failed? “oh it is not a,b,c,d therefore it is ‘attraction'”

    Any references, comments, clues welcomed!

    Rgds Steve Baldwin stbaldwi@hotmail.com

    — B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek B-Greek mailing list B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

    — B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek B-Greek mailing list B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

  9. Stephen Baldwin says:

    Hello Kevin: My original [slightly facetious] response to you was intended for the wider community rather than moving the conversation off-list 😉 Trust it is OK to re-engage the rest of the list [if indeed anyone else out there is interested in engaging!]. If I may be so bold as to query your example, is it a real case of “attraction”? In your example, “what” is a relative pronoun isn’t it? And if so, can be either singular or plural can it not since in English we plainly do not have distinct singular/plural forms of “what”?

    As I understand it, is “attraction” simply evident in gender/case choices or does it occur [in NTG] in other forms?

    Iver and George: Tak/Thanks for your responses. I will chase up your suggestions.

    Rgds Steve [Baldwin] stbaldwi@hotmail.com

    Message body

    I was trying to think of an example when I came across one in an email this morning. The subject was initially the importance of the extended family to individuals in some parts of the world. Moving on to what mattered to the extended family, one person wrote “What was most important to the extended family were alliances with other families for mutual defense.” This is a good example of the use of ‘were’ for ‘was’ because of the ‘attraction’ of the following plural noun. The basic thought was “alliances were needed …”, and this may have caused ‘confusion’ momentarily in the mind of the writer, resulting in the incorrect “What was needed were alliances …”. Rather than two ‘was’es, both dependent on ‘what’, the second ‘was’ is replaced by ‘were’ because of ‘attraction’ to the following plural noun. I suspect we have all done similar things without even noticing. Greek provides more opportunities than English by encoding not only number, but also gender.

    Kevin

    On 4/12/2010 3:50 PM, Stephen Baldwin wrote:

    Hello Kevin:

    That was almost a useful reply 😉

    Would you care to expound further?

    Rgds

    SteveB

    > Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2010 15:47:58 +1100

    > From: klriley@alphalink.com.au

    > To: b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org

    > Subject: Re: [B-Greek] The Unattractiveness of Attraction?

    >

    > Perhaps if you looked at some examples of how ‘attraction’ works in

    > English it might make more sense in Greek. As a process, it is not

    > unique to Greek.

    >

    > Kevin Riley

    >

    > On 4/12/2010 3:19 PM, Stephen Baldwin wrote:

    > > Ladies and Gentlemen:

    > > I am perplexed and perhaps a little cynical about the concept of “attraction” in Koine Greek.

    > > One example [among several] occurs in Philippians 1:27-28 where, in Mounce’s Graded Reader, he quotes Fee (NICNT) saying that the hHTIS in v28 refers back to the preceding clause refers back to the whole preceding clause (admittedly I do not have Fee’s work, I am quoting Mounce quoting Fee) and is in the feminine because it is “attracted” to the gender of ENDEIXIS

    > > hHTIS ESTIN AUTOIS ENDEIXIS

    > > Preceding clause:

    > > 1:27-28: THi PISTEI TOU EUANGGELIOU KAI MH PTUROMENOI EN MEDENI hUPO TWN ANTIKEIMENWN hHTIS…

    > > [trust the transliteration attains the minimal acceptable standard]

    > > I have consulted my grammars — I even hoped, after my recent questions whether A.T. Robertson might rise to the occasion, since there is precious little in any of my other works on this subject. Alas he sits on the table in accordance with Lightman’s suggestion, awaiting a job holding down papers in the next tornado.

    > >

    > > So is this thing called “attraction” apparent or real? Perhaps I am uncomfortable with the terminology — it is as if the words have a mind of their own rather than a writer deliberately choosing the appropriate and grammatically correct lexical form? If attraction is real, what purpose does it serve?

    > > Or is “attraction” a catch-all when all logical, semantic, and grammatical attempts to explain the case of a word have failed?

    > > “oh it is not a,b,c,d therefore it is ‘attraction'”

    > >

    > > Any references, comments, clues welcomed!

    > >

    > > Rgds

    > > Steve Baldwin

    > > stbaldwi@hotmail.com

    > >

    > >

    > >

    > >

    > > —

    > > B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek

    > > B-Greek mailing list

    > > B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org

    > > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

    > >

    > >

    > >

    > —

    > B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek

    > B-Greek mailing list

    > B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org

    > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

    — B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek B-Greek mailing list B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

  10. Leonard Jayawardena says:

    Mark L. wrote:

    “Generally, when people talk about attraction, they talk about a relative being attracted to the case of its prior antecedent, so what you have in Phil 1:27-28 is actually reverse attraction, I think, which is even a more unattractive term.”

    LJ:

    Actually, what we have in Phil. 1:27-28 is attraction of the relative to the gender of the predicate. “Inverse attraction” (or “reverse attaction,” as you put it), is the assimilation of the gender of the antecedent to that of the relative. Normally, it is the other way round–hence the term “inverse attraction.”

    An example is Ps. 118:22 (LXX), quoted in Mt. 21:42; Mk. 12:10 and Lk. 17:

    LIQON, hON APEDOKIMASAN hOI OIKODOMOUNTES, hOUTOS EGENHQH EIS KEFALHN GWNIAS.

    Normal grammar would require LIQOS (nominative), hON …, which is exactly what we have in 1 Peter 2:7: LIQOS, hON APEDOKIMASAN hOI OIKODOMOUNTES ….

    Leonard Jayawardena

    — B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek B-Greek mailing list B-Greek@lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

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