Luke 11:1 ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ

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Jonathan Robie
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Luke 11:1 ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ

Post by Jonathan Robie »

What does the phrase ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ contribute here?
Luke 11:1 wrote:Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτὸν ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ προσευχόμενον
What's the difference between:

Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτὸν ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ προσευχόμενον
Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτὸν ποῦ προσευχόμενον
Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτὸν προσευχόμενον

I assume that there's no way that he could be προσευχόμενον without being ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ ... everyone is always ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ, and the phrase says nothing about which place this is. Translations tend to say "in a certain place", which seems to focus attention on the place that the passage tells us nothing about. Would it be better to say something like "he was praying somewhere"?
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
cwconrad
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Re: Luke 11:1 ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ

Post by cwconrad »

Jonathan Robie wrote:What does the phrase ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ contribute here?
Luke 11:1 wrote:Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτὸν ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ προσευχόμενον
What's the difference between:

Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτὸν ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ προσευχόμενον
Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτὸν ποῦ προσευχόμενον
Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτὸν προσευχόμενον

I assume that there's no way that he could be προσευχόμενον without being ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ ... everyone is always ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ, and the phrase says nothing about which place this is. Translations tend to say "in a certain place", which seems to focus attention on the place that the passage tells us nothing about. Would it be better to say something like "he was praying somewhere"?
The second sentence is meaningless because ποῦ is not demonstrative but interrogative. There's an indefinite πού enclitic adverb that can mean "somewhere" -- but I don't recall ever seeing it in the GNT (but my recollection isn't that good). ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ means "at a particular place that doesn't need to be named."
The third sentence makes the reference, if possible, more casual, as if they'd been waiting to catch him praying so that they could put the question to him, but why couldn't they do that at any time. The way Luke introduces it is rather by noting that this happened at some place that nobody remembers or that doesn't have any real bearing on the event's significance; what's more important is that it happened while he was praying. Nevertheless it happened at a particular time and place that doesn't need to be described.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Luke 11:1 ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ

Post by Jonathan Robie »

cwconrad wrote:The second sentence is meaningless because ποῦ is not demonstrative but interrogative. There's an indefinite πού enclitic adverb that can mean "somewhere" -- but I don't recall ever seeing it in the GNT (but my recollection isn't that good). ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ means "at a particular place that doesn't need to be named."
I was a little confused about this. To me, ποῦ seems to have this meaning here:
Matthew 8:20 wrote:ὁ δὲ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἔχει ποῦ τὴν κεφαλὴν κλίνῃ
Luke 9:58 wrote:ὁ δὲ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἔχει ποῦ τὴν κεφαλὴν κλίνῃ.
Luke 12:17 wrote:Τί ποιήσω, ὅτι οὐκ ἔχω ποῦ συνάξω τοὺς καρπούς μου;
That may be a fixed expression οὐκ ἔχειν ποῦ, and trying to use it with this meaning outside of this expression was probably a mistake.

The nearest equivalents for πού that I found were in Hebrews, referring to where something is written:
Hebrews 2:6 wrote:διεμαρτύρατο δέ πού τις λέγων
Hebrews 4:4 wrote:εἴρηκεν γάρ που περὶ τῆς ἑβδόμης οὕτως
I know that for questions, ποῦ has mostly replaced ποῖ, I was wondering if the same might be true for πού with the sense of 'somewhere'. At any rate, that was the state of my waffling when I posted that sentence earlier.
cwconrad wrote:The third sentence makes the reference, if possible, more casual, as if they'd been waiting to catch him praying so that they could put the question to him, but why couldn't they do that at any time. The way Luke introduces it is rather by noting that this happened at some place that nobody remembers or that doesn't have any real bearing on the event's significance; what's more important is that it happened while he was praying. Nevertheless it happened at a particular time and place that doesn't need to be described.
Thanks!
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
cwconrad
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Re: Luke 11:1 ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ

Post by cwconrad »

Jonathan Robie wrote:
cwconrad wrote:The second sentence is meaningless because ποῦ is not demonstrative but interrogative. There's an indefinite πού enclitic adverb that can mean "somewhere" -- but I don't recall ever seeing it in the GNT (but my recollection isn't that good). ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ means "at a particular place that doesn't need to be named."
I was a little confused about this. To me, ποῦ seems to have this meaning here:
Matthew 8:20 wrote:ὁ δὲ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἔχει ποῦ τὴν κεφαλὴν κλίνῃ
Luke 9:58 wrote:ὁ δὲ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἔχει ποῦ τὴν κεφαλὴν κλίνῃ.
Luke 12:17 wrote:Τί ποιήσω, ὅτι οὐκ ἔχω ποῦ συνάξω τοὺς καρπούς μου;
That may be a fixed expression οὐκ ἔχειν ποῦ, and trying to use it with this meaning outside of this expression was probably a mistake.
In each of these ποῦ functions as a relative adverb = "anywhere where/in which"; I'd say it is a condensation of τόπον ὄπου. It's analogous to "what" = "that which" in "I don't know what I'm going to do."
Jonathan Robie wrote:The nearest equivalents for πού that I found were in Hebrews, referring to where something is written:
Hebrews 2:6 wrote:διεμαρτύρατο δέ πού τις λέγων
Hebrews 4:4 wrote:εἴρηκεν γάρ που περὶ τῆς ἑβδόμης οὕτως
Okay, I'm glad you found them; the author of Hebrews certainly writes in a more literary, less colloquial register; to be sure, Luke's Greek is already more literary than Mark's, but the author of Hebrews waxes rhetorical. In these sentences the indefinite που certainly does function in the same manner as ἐν τόπῳ τινί.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Jonathan Robie
Posts: 4158
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:34 pm
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Re: Luke 11:1 ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Thanks, this is really helpful.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
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