Koine and Biblical and Medieval Greek • The function of αὐτὸν in this sentence puzzles me.

Hi All,

I am new here having just joined today. I am working to acquire some facility in Koine Greek. I already have some facility with Hebrew and have just begun with Latin.

I am working my through and greatly enjoying Genesis in the LXX and there is something that puzzles me and I wondered if anyone can explain it. This is from Gen. 11:13

Καὶ ἔζησεν Καινὰν ἑκατὸν τριάκοντα ἔτη, καὶ ἐγέννησεν τὸν Σάλα. καὶ ἔζησεν Καινὰν μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Σάλα ἔτη τριακόσια τριάκοντα, καὶ ἐγέννησεν υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας, καὶ ἀπέθανεν.

My question surrounds the phrase: καὶ ἔζησεν Καινὰν μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Σάλα.

I know that the phrase means as a whole, but am interested in how αυτον is functioning here.

Is αυτον here functioning as an object of γεννησαι (αυτον being in the accusative) so that it is paired up with the article to make αυτον τον Ζαλα or is it functioning in some way to express a "posessive" relationship with μετα το γεννησαι to indicate something like "after his (αυτον) begetting";--a kind of equivalent to the Hebrew הולידו
, which is an infinitive construct with 3ps possessive suffix. Though it would seem logical to me in my ignorance then to expect a genitive rather than an accusative, though I do realise my puzzlement probably arises from my ignorance of Greek idioms somewhere as there is no exact one-to-one correspondence between any language and another.

If anyone can shed light on this?

Statistics: Posted by thestuffedowl — Mon Jul 15, 2024 7:05 pm


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