Re: FAINW, FAINOMAI (was GREEK GRAMMARS)

Carlton L. Winbery (winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net)
Fri, 24 May 1996 21:29:20 +0400

Carl Conrad wrote;
>I think that those forms in Revelation might just possibly be aorist
>actives (albeit in an intransitive sense) but that rather than Doric forms
>we may have to do here with the emergence of new tense stems. This is
>nothing but pure conjecture, but we do know that new modern Greek verbs
>like PEQAINW ('die,' ) have at some point come into existence out of the
>aorist stem (A)PEQAN-, PAW ('go') from aorist stem (E)PAG-, XERW ('know')
>from aorist stem (E)XE(U)R-. I wonder whether a process of formation of new
>present stems and then of new elements of the conjugation of a verb may
>account for these FAN- aorist actives (or at least for the unquestionable
>one in Acts 21:3--the two in Revelation may still be and I think probably
>are intransitive athematic aorists. How on earth would a Doric form emerge
>in ordinary Koine prose narrative? One expects Doric forms in Hellenistic
>verse that is Doric by tradition, like Bucolic or Mime. And for that
>matter, Meleager, a poet from Gadara, that town of the demoniac Legion
>exorcised by Jesus, wrote elegiac verses in Doric dialect. Hmm. the plot
>thickens! Let us engage in wild speculation? Might Luke, the supposed
>author of Acts, have really been, as tradition asserts, a physician? Would
>he have trained on the island of Cos, center of medicine, where Doric
>dialect was spoken? Sounds pretty far-fetched, particularly in view of the
>fact that Luke/Acts is written in what is probably the best narrative
>Hellenistic prose--solid Koine--to be found in the New Testament.

I once got trapped at Hamat Gader (just below Gadara on the Yarmuk) by
sniper fire while conducting a group of seminary students thru the Roman
baths there. I was totally unaware of Meleager. Would be interesting
reading. Perhaps Sir William Ramsay was right that Luke was from
Macedonia, not too far from Cos. No way of knowing what all he had read.
For that matter Patmos is not too far from Cos either. If this "John" were
native?

> I guess I come down ultimately on the side of thinking that one
>year's better than none--but that really depends on the individual. My one
>concession to relieve students of undue hardship is to wink at their
>failure to learn and use correct accentuation.

This year I did have one student who finished 4th semester Greek whom I
think can really translate. He has translated several places in the LXX
and has translated I Clement as well. He also handled I Peter rather
easily. He makes the work worth while.

Carlton L. Winbery
Fogleman Professor of Religion
Louisiana College