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Gary Brower's question re: "price vs. honor"



The cleanest and simplest answer to Gary's question is this:
	"Agorazo" as a very takes the accusative of the thing bought,
and the genitive of the price paid.  [Correct "very" to "verb"!]
	Hence: "Glaucon bought [agorazo] a boy-slave[accusative]
10,00 obols[genitive]." = "Glaucon bought a boy-slave for 10,000 obols."
	Also: "Glaucon bought a slave[accusative] a price[genitive]
not yet agreed-on." = "Glaucon bought a slave for an as yet not agreed-on
price."  Here the standard word for "price" is "time".
	"Time" as a noun with a verb for buying or selling almost
invariably is in the genitive, and means "for a price."  Any other
noun referring to exchange, barter, or value with a verb meaning to
buy or sell, when in the genitive refers to the price paid.  Hence
the so-called "genitive of price" (which is an interpretive category,
of course, but which is virtually universal with verbs of buying or
selling).
	What is crucial is investigating the grammar-patterns associated
with a noun, not simply lexical possibilities.  In this particular
statement (1 Cor 6:20), taking "times" as 
"honor" would force this meaning: "You were bought; the price paid was
honor."  But that is a curious notion; and since the very thing one looks for
after "agorazo" is a genitive giving the price, and the very word in the
genitive IS the word "price" itself, the alternative (odd) meaning is
certainly quite dubious.

Edward Hobbs
(Gary's first Greek professor, in Berkeley)