Re: Jonah 1:3 TOU FUGEIN

Paul Zellmer (pzellmer@ix.netcom.com)
Fri, 10 Jan 1997 22:22:08 -0800

Jonathan Robie wrote:
>
> At 03:27 PM 1/10/97 -0600, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
> >You've gotten very good answers already on this (and a good lesson on uses
> >of the articular infinitive!); I would only add one little detail:
>
> Indeed, the messages from Donald and James were useful! (Is Donald new here?
> I don't remember him, but I'm not good with faces...) I've made it through
> participles, but I still need to work my way through infinitives. Time to
> hit the books again.
>
> Am I right in assuming that TOU PLEUSAI is being used in the same way (tou +
> inf. with hENEKA omitted) in the following?
>
> Jonah 1:3 KAI ANESTH IWNAS <TOU FUGEIN> EIS QARSIS EK PROSWPOU KURIOU KAI
> KATEBH EIS IOPPHN KAI hEUREN PLOION BADIZON EIS QARSIS KAI EDWKEN TO NAULON
> AUTOU KAI ENEBH EIS AUTO <TOU PLEUSAI> MET AUTWN EIS QARSIS EK PROSWPOU KURIOU.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Jonathan
>

One quick note about both of the infinitive forms you note here,
Jonathan. Normally I know that we resist discussion here of hebraic
influence, but we are clearly working with a translation of hebrew
material. I do not think that it is incidental that the both the hebrew
and the greek use forms of the infinitive in both of the cases you just
mentioned. Rather, I suspect the LXX translators were influenced by the
form in the hebrew, and that greek just happened to have a parallel form
that fit. The question is, would they have chosen the
genitive-article+infinitive if this were an original greek document?
Perhaps they might have put in some of the particles that you feel are
omitted had that been the case.

Paul