Does anyone have any thoughts about the use of the double article in hO hUIOS TOU ANQRWPOU which Jesus used of himself many times? He even asked the newly healed man who had been born blind, if he knew who “The son of the man is”. Stephen used it too when he saw Jesus at the right side of God.
In Daniel 7, Revelation 14 and Ezekiel 37 no definite article is used for “son of man”.
Could it be some Jewish ‘code speak’ for Messiah, “The man” being perhaps understood to be David or maybe Adam?
Joe Ripley
—
I think you’re trying to rely on your English language experience too much.
This is a standard way to state such in Greek. Read more and you’ll see.
george
gfsomsel
… search for truth, hear truth,
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
defend the truth till death.
– Jan Hus
_________
________________________________
href=”mailto:b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org”>b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Sat, February 19, 2011 5:14:22 PM
Dear List – Does anyone have any thoughts about the use of the double article in
hO hUIOS TOU ANQRWPOU which Jesus used of himself many times? He even asked the
newly healed man who had been born blind, if he knew who “The son of the man
is”. Stephen used it too when he saw Jesus at the right side of God.
In Daniel 7, Revelation 14 and Ezekiel 37 no definite article is used for “son
of man”.
Could it be some Jewish ‘code speak’ for Messiah, “The man” being perhaps
understood to be David or maybe Adam?
Joe Ripley
—
Instead of “standard way to state such in Greek” would it not be more accurate to say that it is the standard way to translate this into English?
on the web I found this: In the Koine Greek of the New Testament, the term “the son of man” is invariably “ὁ υἱὸς τοὺ ἀνθρώπου”, which might be rendered more literally “the son of the human being”; however, due to conventions of interpreting the definite article in Greek, “the son of man” most scholars believe is a better translation.
Only Jesus and Stephen use the article for MAN. I have not been able to find any case of this in the LXX or in the rest of the NT. Why is the article not taken seriously here?
As for the “read more and you’ll see” putdown – read what and where are my response?
Joe Ripley
Rather than look simply at this one phrase, let’s look at a similar phrase. For our purposes let it be Mt 3.2 where we read [καὶ]λέγων· μετανοεῖτε· ἤγγικεν γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν.
There are some differences: The noun is feminine rather than masculine and we have a plural rather than a singular in TWN OURANWN. Otherwise the structure is the same. I think you are getting confused regarding the phrase ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου hO hUIOS TOU ANQRWPOU because you are bringing too much theological baggage into the consideration of the phrase.
george gfsomsel
… search for truth, hear truth, learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth, defend the truth till death.
– Jan Hus
Hi Joe – sorry you found the response to “read more” flippant or a put-down. Normally the list responds quite kindly to really basic Greek grammar questions like this one.
Do you have a basic and/or intermediate biblical Greek grammar book? Any such book will do for a start — look up articles. Greek doesn’t handle articles the same way English does, and the rules can get pretty complicated if you want to sort out particular patterns using grammar rules. It’s probably easier in the long run to just read a lot of biblical Greek, and you’ll soon get the hang of it. Often there’s no apparent reason for one sentence having an article and another not having one (although I bet some on this list will have rules to cover everything).
For example, many beginning Greek classes use John’s gospel as a text — take a look at the first couple of chapters — right in the first two verse are three occurrences of QEON, two with an article and one without.
As for “Why is the article not taken seriously here?” I believe it’s because in general this is a quite common construction, with all sorts of nouns besides UIOS and ANQRWPOS.
I hope I got the transliteration right. I’ve been lurking for over a decade and still hardly ever post.
Susan Jeffers
href=”mailto:b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org”>b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org href=”mailto:b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org”>b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org
My apologies, I thought I had included a transliteration of the Greek. Here it is.
[καὶ]λέγων· μετανοεῖτε· ἤγγικεν γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν. [KAI] LEGWN, “METANOEITE, HGGIKEN GAR hH BASILEIA TWN OURANWN.” george gfsomsel
… search for truth, hear truth, learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth, defend the truth till death.
– Jan Hus
Joe wrote
Hi, Joe,
But isn’t the phrase used almost exclusively by Jesus? What is the break down of Jesus’ use of TOU versus TOU ANQRWPOU?
I’m on record as saying that most of the time, we take stuff like this, the presence of the article, word order, which connectives are used, imperfect versus aorist, etc, TOO seriously, in that euphony and stylistic variation are often more of a factor here than semantic considerations. You’ve got, on this list, Semantic Minimalists and Semantic Maximalists and everything in between. Susan J. and I, I think, are Semantic Minimalists, but she’s correct, there are Maximalists out there who can find a difference in meaning here as everywhere.
Mark L Φωσφορος
FWSFOROS MARKOS
On Feb 22, 2011, at 7:22 AM, susan@read-the-bible.org wrote:
I really just want to say “Amen” to what Susan has said here; anything more I have to say is chiefly by way of underlining what she has said — and maybe put a different slant on what George has said.
The Greek article really does function quite differently from the English article — it is omitted often enough where English seems to require it and it appears often enough where English would omit it — e.g. with proper names (we don’t go around talking about “the George” or “the Susan” — and when people talk about “the Donald,” they are well aware that it’s not an ordinary English usage. And there are instances where Greek may use the article but doesn’t require it. It really is rather difficult to get a “handle” on the usage of the Greek article.
And frankly, I don’t think that reading through standard grammars — even the best of them — suffices to prepare a reader of ancient Greek to recognize and anticipate when the article will and when it won’t be used in the texts one reads. What DOES suffice, I think, is “further reading” — by which I don’t mean “a few more pages” but tens or hundreds of pages — voluminous reading. I also think that it’s better to be reading without pondering as one goes just how this would be rendered in English: how to translate a Greek text into English is altogether secondary to reading a Greek text in order to understand it. The focus on conversion of Greek texts into English or another target language is probably the bane of Biblical Greek pedagogy.
Carl W. Conrad Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
href=”mailto:b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org”>b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org href=”mailto:b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org”>b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org
Hi Joe, What George Somsel said is certainly correct. On the other hand, if that is what a Greek writer was trying to communicate that would certainly be a way you could do it. By using the article you could be emphasizing the identity of the person, in this case *the Man,* i.e. Adam.( I do not think *the Man* is ever used of David).
What is also interesting is that, as far as I can tell, every use of Son of Man in the LXX is anarthrous. However, this may be because it is *translation Greek*. Someone like Albert Pietersma can confirm this, but *Son of Man* in the LXX seems to be a Semitic idiom and, as such, the anarthrous construction would be a good way to communicate this. In other words, the emphasis is simply being a human being – a man. But that is what is all the more interesting. If the GNT writers were intent on using the title Son of Man in the same Semitic manner, (as it was used, for example, in Heb. 2:6), it would have been easy for them to simply follow the LXX pattern and give it forth without the article. The fact that they didn’t could indicate that they were using it in the way you suggest. I believe the title is used without the article in just only three or four places in the GNT. In the majority of places it carries the article. Some early Christians did believe Jesus was the *promised seed* of the woman (Gen. 3:15) – in other words, the Son of the Man (Adam). *If* the GNT writers also believed this, this certainly could have been a way for them to communicate that belief.
As to whether such is the case, as you can see, is a matter of opinion and cannot be proven or disproven from the grammar alone. However, if you are interested in my opinion, (which doesn’t mean much) I would be in the camp of a non-idiomatic use, except in those few places like Heb. 2:6 where it seems to be used in a Semitic manner to simply mean a human being. Cordially, Blue Harris
I don’t have the time right now to verify this, but I think you’ll find that the lack of article matches the source text. Al
href=”mailto:b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org”>b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org
I think you’re trying to rely on your English language experience too much.
This is a standard way to state such in Greek. Read more and you’ll see.
george
gfsomsel
… search for truth, hear truth,
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
defend the truth till death.
– Jan Hus
_________
________________________________
href=”mailto:b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org”>b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Sat, February 19, 2011 5:14:22 PM
Dear List – Does anyone have any thoughts about the use of the double article in
hO hUIOS TOU ANQRWPOU which Jesus used of himself many times? He even asked the
newly healed man who had been born blind, if he knew who “The son of the man
is”. Stephen used it too when he saw Jesus at the right side of God.
In Daniel 7, Revelation 14 and Ezekiel 37 no definite article is used for “son
of man”.
Could it be some Jewish ‘code speak’ for Messiah, “The man” being perhaps
understood to be David or maybe Adam?
Joe Ripley
—
Instead of “standard way to state such in Greek” would it not be more accurate to say that it is the standard way to translate this into English?
on the web I found this: In the Koine Greek of the New Testament, the term “the son of man” is invariably “ὁ υἱὸς τοὺ ἀνθρώπου”, which might be rendered more literally “the son of the human being”; however, due to conventions of interpreting the definite article in Greek, “the son of man” most scholars believe is a better translation.
Only Jesus and Stephen use the article for MAN. I have not been able to find any case of this in the LXX or in the rest of the NT. Why is the article not taken seriously here?
As for the “read more and you’ll see” putdown – read what and where are my response?
Joe Ripley
Rather than look simply at this one phrase, let’s look at a similar phrase. For our purposes let it be Mt 3.2 where we read [καὶ]λέγων· μετανοεῖτε· ἤγγικεν γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν.
There are some differences: The noun is feminine rather than masculine and we have a plural rather than a singular in TWN OURANWN. Otherwise the structure is the same. I think you are getting confused regarding the phrase ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου hO hUIOS TOU ANQRWPOU because you are bringing too much theological baggage into the consideration of the phrase.
george gfsomsel
… search for truth, hear truth, learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth, defend the truth till death.
– Jan Hus
Hi Joe – sorry you found the response to “read more” flippant or a put-down. Normally the list responds quite kindly to really basic Greek grammar questions like this one.
Do you have a basic and/or intermediate biblical Greek grammar book? Any such book will do for a start — look up articles. Greek doesn’t handle articles the same way English does, and the rules can get pretty complicated if you want to sort out particular patterns using grammar rules. It’s probably easier in the long run to just read a lot of biblical Greek, and you’ll soon get the hang of it. Often there’s no apparent reason for one sentence having an article and another not having one (although I bet some on this list will have rules to cover everything).
For example, many beginning Greek classes use John’s gospel as a text — take a look at the first couple of chapters — right in the first two verse are three occurrences of QEON, two with an article and one without.
As for “Why is the article not taken seriously here?” I believe it’s because in general this is a quite common construction, with all sorts of nouns besides UIOS and ANQRWPOS.
I hope I got the transliteration right. I’ve been lurking for over a decade and still hardly ever post.
Susan Jeffers
href=”mailto:b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org”>b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org href=”mailto:b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org”>b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org
My apologies, I thought I had included a transliteration of the Greek. Here it is.
[καὶ]λέγων· μετανοεῖτε· ἤγγικεν γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν. [KAI] LEGWN, “METANOEITE, HGGIKEN GAR hH BASILEIA TWN OURANWN.” george gfsomsel
… search for truth, hear truth, learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth, defend the truth till death.
– Jan Hus
Joe wrote
Hi, Joe,
But isn’t the phrase used almost exclusively by Jesus? What is the break down of Jesus’ use of TOU versus TOU ANQRWPOU?
I’m on record as saying that most of the time, we take stuff like this, the presence of the article, word order, which connectives are used, imperfect versus aorist, etc, TOO seriously, in that euphony and stylistic variation are often more of a factor here than semantic considerations. You’ve got, on this list, Semantic Minimalists and Semantic Maximalists and everything in between. Susan J. and I, I think, are Semantic Minimalists, but she’s correct, there are Maximalists out there who can find a difference in meaning here as everywhere.
Mark L Φωσφορος
FWSFOROS MARKOS
On Feb 22, 2011, at 7:22 AM, susan@read-the-bible.org wrote:
I really just want to say “Amen” to what Susan has said here; anything more I have to say is chiefly by way of underlining what she has said — and maybe put a different slant on what George has said.
The Greek article really does function quite differently from the English article — it is omitted often enough where English seems to require it and it appears often enough where English would omit it — e.g. with proper names (we don’t go around talking about “the George” or “the Susan” — and when people talk about “the Donald,” they are well aware that it’s not an ordinary English usage. And there are instances where Greek may use the article but doesn’t require it. It really is rather difficult to get a “handle” on the usage of the Greek article.
And frankly, I don’t think that reading through standard grammars — even the best of them — suffices to prepare a reader of ancient Greek to recognize and anticipate when the article will and when it won’t be used in the texts one reads. What DOES suffice, I think, is “further reading” — by which I don’t mean “a few more pages” but tens or hundreds of pages — voluminous reading. I also think that it’s better to be reading without pondering as one goes just how this would be rendered in English: how to translate a Greek text into English is altogether secondary to reading a Greek text in order to understand it. The focus on conversion of Greek texts into English or another target language is probably the bane of Biblical Greek pedagogy.
Carl W. Conrad Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
href=”mailto:b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org”>b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org href=”mailto:b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org”>b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org
Hi Joe, What George Somsel said is certainly correct. On the other hand, if that is what a Greek writer was trying to communicate that would certainly be a way you could do it. By using the article you could be emphasizing the identity of the person, in this case *the Man,* i.e. Adam.( I do not think *the Man* is ever used of David).
What is also interesting is that, as far as I can tell, every use of Son of Man in the LXX is anarthrous. However, this may be because it is *translation Greek*. Someone like Albert Pietersma can confirm this, but *Son of Man* in the LXX seems to be a Semitic idiom and, as such, the anarthrous construction would be a good way to communicate this. In other words, the emphasis is simply being a human being – a man. But that is what is all the more interesting. If the GNT writers were intent on using the title Son of Man in the same Semitic manner, (as it was used, for example, in Heb. 2:6), it would have been easy for them to simply follow the LXX pattern and give it forth without the article. The fact that they didn’t could indicate that they were using it in the way you suggest. I believe the title is used without the article in just only three or four places in the GNT. In the majority of places it carries the article. Some early Christians did believe Jesus was the *promised seed* of the woman (Gen. 3:15) – in other words, the Son of the Man (Adam). *If* the GNT writers also believed this, this certainly could have been a way for them to communicate that belief.
As to whether such is the case, as you can see, is a matter of opinion and cannot be proven or disproven from the grammar alone. However, if you are interested in my opinion, (which doesn’t mean much) I would be in the camp of a non-idiomatic use, except in those few places like Heb. 2:6 where it seems to be used in a Semitic manner to simply mean a human being. Cordially, Blue Harris
I don’t have the time right now to verify this, but I think you’ll find that the lack of article matches the source text. Al
href=”mailto:b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org”>b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org
Jesus is eternally identified with us. In sufferings, trials, godly fear. And being made perfect in obedience Jesus is able to comfort, help and strengthen us when we stand before God. Then and now.
Jesus is eternally identified with us. In sufferings, trials, godly fear. And being made perfect in obedience Jesus is able to comfort, help and strengthen us when we stand before God. Then and now.