Stephen, perfect explanation. I got it.
In the case of Acts 26:16b-17, I should have known that
the relative pronoun, as an anaphoric pronoun like “this”, “that”, “it”, “they”, etc,
can refer to anything that has been introduced to the context so far,
as long as the reader can identify the referent.
I should have remembered the class I once took about “discourse analysis” ^^
Moon Jung
Statistics: Posted by moon — June 10th, 2014, 5:20 am
Louis L Sorenson wrote:
Stephen wroteσυμφέρω in the next verse suggests movement..
Yes, that is what I thought. Movement is surely involved because they all brought their magical books to the same pile to burn.
But I also think ‘ἦλθον ὀμολογούμενοι’ is odd. It’s missing something (εἰς, πρός, κτλ. The default usage is like Mk 1.45 ἐξῆλθον ἐκ τῆς πόλεως καὶ ἤρχοντο πρὸς αὐτόν.). Perhaps the problem (where I’m led astray) is the English use where ‘began’ has to be a modal auxiliary verb.Carl wrote:
And to underscore that, wouldn’t an imperfect for ἄρχομαι here be odd? “They kept on beginning”?But cf. Thucydides 1.25.4
(ᾗ
καὶ μᾶλλον ἐξηρτύοντο τὸ ναυτικὸν καὶ ἦσαν οὐκ ἀδύνατοι·
τριήρεις γὰρ εἴκοσι καὶ ἑκατὸν ὑπῆρχον αὐτοῖς ὅτε ἤρχοντο
πολεμεῖν),— would not we read that as ‘when they began to fight’? or is it ‘when they came to the fight’?
But then again, Luke likes to be ambiguous where he can. There are no textual variants here – so I guess I would go with the traditional rendering. For those who are trying to recreate a spoken Koine, this may be an example to avoid or rule to follow. i.e. use the aorist of ἄρχομαι with the infinitive, not the imperfect.
(1) Thucydides’ account of the buildup to the Peloponnesian War is vivid in its description of the ongoing process, and the imperfects contribute to that: “And they kept outfitting the fleet all the more (and they were not wanting in military might: in fact, they had a hundred and twenty triremes at the time when they were just starting hostilities.”
(2) Luke’s description of this process is vivid too, although I don’t personally think it’s ambiguous. I’m reminded of vivid literary descriptions of Savonarola’s great conflagration of books in Florence’s Piazza della Signoria. Awesome and frightening, as is the course of events in Ukraine right now.
Statistics: Posted by cwconrad — March 2nd, 2014, 10:37 am
Barry Hofstetter wrote:Peter Streitenberger wrote:Dear friends,Ἀγωνίζου τὸν καλὸν ἀγῶνα τῆς πίστεως, ἐπιλαβοῦ τῆς αἰωνίου ζωῆς, (1Tim 6,12) – why is the first imperative in the present tense and the second in the Aorist? Is it a call to an ongoing fight of faith and a grasping of eternal live seen as a singe event (if so is it already done or a future event – I mean the grasping).
Thanks !
PeterI would see the force of ἐπιλαβοῦ as “grasp,” “seize firmly.” In my mind the aorist imperative simply looks at the action as a whole, and I wonder if this isn’t really an aktionsart issue?
When I was a kid many, many moons ago (later 1940’s), a popular ditty was “You’ve got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative, don’t mess with Mr. Inbetween.” “Latch on to” seems to me perfect colloquial English idiom for ἐπιλαβέσθαι — “get a firm grip on.”
Statistics: Posted by cwconrad — May 22nd, 2014, 2:42 pm
Wow, talk about a newb mistake. ἐμοί is the correct accentuation for the emphatic form of the dative pronoun and the nominative plural of ἐμός. The circumflex is used with the genitive of the emphatic, ἐμοῦ… So much for my reputation for absolute infallibility…. hahahaha, I crack myself up!
Statistics: Posted by Barry Hofstetter — June 17th, 2014, 3:32 pm
καθὼς is correlative to the deictic adverb οὕτως which somewhat clumsily follows it, instead of preceding it. A more natural rendering would be as follows:
ὁ λέγων ἐν αὐτῷ μένειν ὀφείλει οὕτως, καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν, καὶ αὐτὸς [οὕτως] περιπατεῖν.
He who says that he abides in him should thus, as he walked, also himself walk.
Statistics: Posted by Robert Crowe — November 15th, 2016, 10:49 pm
Another way of saying that is to say the Greek reads a lot more gently than the glosses allow for.
Statistics: Posted by Stephen Hughes — December 23rd, 2016, 1:06 pm
cwconrad asked, “Am I alone in finding the position of παρὰ σοί here strange?” Information available at, inter alia, newadvent.org, indicates you’re not alone.
In several English translations of patristic allusions related to John 17:5, Irenaeus, Novatian, and Origen put παρὰ σοί in front of πρὸ τοῦ τὸν κόσμον εἶναι. Also, Ignatius omitted παρὰ σοί, and Hippolytus left out the phrase πρὸ τοῦ τὸν κόσμον εἶναι παρὰ σοί.
Statistics: Posted by Pat Ferguson — March 8th, 2014, 6:54 pm
An Exegetical Analysis of Luke 11:36: The Wholly Illuminated Body This exegetical study of ‘An Exegetical Analysis of Luke 11:36: The Wholly Illuminated Body’ is based on a b-greek discussion from 1881. The discussion presents various critical editions of Luke 11:36, including Nestle 1904, Westcott and Hort 1881, Byzantine Majority Text 2005, Greek Orthodox Church…
Wes Wood wrote:
Thanks for the responses the indirect question makes perfect sense. And the second part I don’t have a problem with either. I am meaning authorial foreshadowing inside the pericope, however. Nothing more than the author tipping his hand to what is going to happen in the narrative.
It’s a completely ordinary phrase as Timothy pointed out. It is easy to find its usage as simply “arise” in places like Mat 2:13, 9:19 26:46, Mark 10:49 14:42,. It clearly implies rising from a settled position, but nothing more. In fact, Luke 6:8 makes very clear what “εγειρε”/”εγειραι” in Mark 3:3 means.
Statistics: Posted by David Lim — June 17th, 2014, 7:18 am
Stephen Carlson wrote:
OK. Having checked now Brown commentary, such an appendix was not to be. (There was one on Johannine vocabulary, though, and his use of synonyms.).
It’s been years since I looked at that. I do remember the appendix on Johannine vocabulary, but I also remember a discussion of Johannine use of the perfect; it may have been within the commentary itself with regard to some particular interesting usage of perfect tense.
Statistics: Posted by cwconrad — May 9th, 2014, 7:54 am
Doug Dinnsen wrote:
τῆς μητρὸς αὐτοῦ Μαρίας in Mat 1.18Since Mary was just mentioned in verse 16, the article here could be understood as an article of previous reference, “His [previously-mentioned] mother Mary”.
Wouldn’t that argument work better if Μαρίας had the article rather than μητρός?
Statistics: Posted by Stephen Carlson — September 9th, 2016, 11:15 pm
Robert Crowe wrote:
There is a remarkable contradiction here with the Hindu ideal, where doing nothing is promoted as a way of attaining nirvana. “When we are doing something, we are only ever doing one thing; but when we’re doing nothing, we are doing absolutely nothing.”
cwconrad wrote:
In a slightly different context, I think of Cicero’s claim that he’s always felt he should be engaged in some megotium or else in some “honorable” form of otium (I think that’s the opening of De Oratore) “Leisure” is too easily associated with “laziness” or moral weakness, “idleness” — “the devil’s workshop.” The final stanza of Catullus’ recreation of Sappho’s grand litany of erotic envy sermonizes about the same “devil’s workshop” otium, μηδὲν ἐργάζεσθαι:Catullus 5 wrote:otium, Catulle, tibi molestumest;
olio exsultas nimiumque gestis.
otium reges pries et beatas
perdidit urbesThat’s impossible to do justice to; it’s something like, “Your problem, Catullus, is having nothing to do; you’re overindulging, bloated on idleness; having nothing to do has been the ruination of monarchs and civilizations.”
If Standard Average European (SAE) was a reference to a Kulturbund rather than a Sprachbund, we would be able see quite clearly at least from the above statements that Ancient India was not part of the region. 
The area covered by the Roman Empire politically, and the area influenced by Roman culture continues to foster the values of Roman society and civilisation, and those value seem familiar to us. In other words, it seems that the authour if 2 Thessalonians was working with a recognised sentiment, rather than introducing a wholly novel concept.
Statistics: Posted by Stephen Hughes — August 16th, 2016, 12:30 am
The relevant text: καὶ σημεῖον ἔλαβεν περιτομῆς, σφραγῖδα τῆς δικαιοσύνης τῆς πίστεως τῆς ἐν τῇ ἀκροβυστίᾳ, εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν πατέρα πάντων τῶν πιστευόντων δι’ ἀκροβυστίας, εἰς τὸ λογισθῆναι [καὶ] αὐτοῖς [τὴν] δικαιοσύνην,
My question concerns the last prepositional phrase εἰς τὸ λογισθῆναι [καὶ] αὐτοῖς [τὴν] δικαιοσύνην, The first prepositional phrase used the same construction, the preposition eis with the articular infinitive. The first phrase would seem to express the purpose of God in making Abraham the father of all who believe. Should the second phrase be understood as purpose or result, or is there some overlap in the two? Should the second phrase be applied to all those who believe, or should it be construed as the first phrase with the purpose of God. If the former, unbelievers would want to believe (one supposes) for the purpose of being imputed righteousness, but the fact that they do believe indicates that as a result they are imputed righteousness.
Thanks in advance,
Statistics: Posted by ronsnider1 — July 16th, 2014, 12:04 pm
I think that the difference between λανθάνω and ἐπιλανθάνομαι is similar to the difference between ποθέω and ἐπιποθέω
Statistics: Posted by Stephen Hughes — May 17th, 2017, 10:58 am
Paul uses many parenthetical statements, especially in Ephesians. How does one determine when a parenthesis begins and ends? Also, regarding Eph.3:16-17, does it not seem that ινα δωη υμιν κατα τον πλουτον της δοξης αυτου δυναμει κραταιωθηναι δια του πνευματος αυτου εις τον εσω ανθρωπον kατοικησαι τον χριστον δια της πιστεως εν ταις καρδιαις υμων is a parenthetical within a parenthetical? Thanks.
Statistics: Posted by dpost1254 — March 15th, 2017, 4:16 pm
Stephen Hughes wrote:
εἰς τὸ μέσον means “and become the middle”, “so everybody can see you”, i.e. there is a reorientation of direction of the people looking on, a new middle
Perhaps “focus” is a way of expressing a movable middle in English, “He stood up into focus.”, or more wordily expressed, “He stood up for to make himself the centre of everyone’s attention.”
Statistics: Posted by Stephen Hughes — February 1st, 2017, 3:31 am
Interesting enough, but in the context of a discussion on word order, Pennington doesn’t explicitly state which verb the “intervening” indirect object goes with. Either Herod made some grand statement to all around him, “By Jove, mark my words, I wil…
The synoptic parallel provides one an opportunity to do that.
Matthew 15:34 wrote:Καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Πόσους ἄρτους ἔχετε;
Statistics: Posted by Stephen Hughes — September 22nd, 2017, 3:07 pm
I’ve been looking at the usage of καταλῦσαι in Luke 19:7 and am a bit stumped why it’s translated as “to be the guest of” (or a variation thereof) instead of to abolish, destroy, dissolve, etc.,
In light of the overall passage, it doesn’t make sense to use a derivative of abolish but I don’t understand either why it deviates so much from the other usages (i.e. Matthew 5:17, 61; Acts 5:39)
Statistics: Posted by Matt Lahey — June 19th, 2017, 6:47 pm
