Re: EIS+verb EIS

Paul S. Dixon (dixonps@juno.com)
Sat, 08 Nov 1997 05:05:06 EST

Don, Jeff, et al:

Thanks for your responses. Yes, I think you are both probably right in
that there is no particular emphasis with the repetition of the
preposition, as in EISHLQEN EIS.

For your information, I did check for EISHLQEN with no accompanying
repeated EIS anywhere else in the sentence (either before or after
EISHLQEN). It does occur 11 times, interestingly 7 times in Lukan
literature, once in Hebrews, once in Mark, and twice in Johannine
literature. Since Luke and Hebrews are perhaps closest to Classical
Greek in style, am wondering if this phenomenon (no repetition of the
preposition in an EIS+verb construction) is not especially prevalent in
Classical Greek. Or, another to put it, is the repetition of the
preposition a later development in the Greek language?

Jeff, I did not have any particular passage in mind before this inquiry.
But, your comments on Mark 15:38 are interesting, nevertheless.

Paul Dixon

On Fri, 07 Nov 1997 08:40:44 -0800 Don Wilkins
<dwilkins@ucr.campus.mci.net> writes:
>At 02:42 AM 11/7/97 EST, Paul S. Dixon wrote:
>>B-Greekers:
>>
>>Does anybody know the significance, if any, of the EIS+verb EIS
>>construction, you know, like in EISHLQEN EIS?
>>
>>I researched it a little. Found it (the EIS+verb EIS construction)
>>occurs 812 times in the Greek NT (according to my LOGOS search
program).
>>Have not been able to find anything in the grammars about it and would
>>appreciate any help.
>>
>>Also, checked out EISHLQEN EIS versus HLQEN EIS. The first occurs 18
>>times. The latter 16 times.
>>
>Paul, IMO there is little if any significance to this construction, at
least
>in the realm of whether the prepositional idea is emphasized. In general
it
>is considered good Greek style to "repeat" the preposition with the
object
>if the preposition retains its physical sense within the compound verb
(this
>appears to be true of all similar prepositions and compounds, not just
EIS).
>The Greeks seem not to view this as redundant, and in fact one soon gets
>quite accustomed to it. In effect, it helps to clarify the relationship
of a
>given object to the verb. However, it is not always used (as your
research
>shows).
>
>Don Wilkins
>