Mt.28:1 ἦλθεν set out, travel or arrive?

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Please quote the Greek text you are discussing directly in your post if it is reasonably short - do not ask people to look it up. This is not a beginner's forum, competence in Greek is assumed.
Stephen Hughes
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Mt.28:1 ἦλθεν set out, travel or arrive?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

The question boils down to whether we are to see the προσελθὼν of verse 2 in the big picture of the angel coming down from heaven,or whether the women saw that bigger perspective happening in front of them - watching the angel move down from the sky to the earth, arrive at the tomb move the stone and sit on it.
ἄγγελος γὰρ κυρίου καταβὰς ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, προσελθὼν ἀπεκύλισεν τὸν λίθον ἀπὸ τῆς θύρας, καὶ ἐκάθητο ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ
It seems to me that either a narrative imagination (reconstruction) of events or the retelling of the women's perspective could be being related in that verse.

The ἦλθεν of verse 1, is not ἀπελθεῖν "depart (from where they had spent the night)" nor προσελθεῖν "arrive (at where they were going)". The context of prepositions suggests that they "were on the way".

ἤρχετο and ἤρχοντο are proportionately rarer forms, (not used in Matthew), expressing the situation where one person comes again and again along the same route or many people come along the same route. That is to say that the view of the action in process is not affected by it being aorist here - ἦλθεν is still an open-ended action despite the existence of the ἤρχετο and ἤρχοντο.

Is that logic flawed?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Mt.28:1 ἦλθεν set out, travel or arrive?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Why does this the basic point of discussion for this verb recurrently go to the discussion of whether it means "go" or "come"? There are so many other things to consider. It's like discussing again and again why some English sentences construct their questions with "Do ... ?" and some with "Is ... ?". Other languages don't make a distinction. English does. Here English does, that is an issue in English.

I want to discuss the Greek.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Mt.28:1 ἦλθεν set out, travel or arrive?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
Why does this the basic point of discussion for this verb recurrently go to the discussion of whether it means "go" or "come"? There are so many other things to consider. It's like discussing again and again why some English sentences construct their questions with "Do ... ?" and some with "Is ... ?". Other languages don't make a distinction. English does. Here English does, that is an issue in English.

I want to discuss the Greek.
Aren't you basically asking the same thing in the original post, but with "arrive" vs. "be on the way" instead of "come" and "go," respectively?
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Tim Evans
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Re: Mt.28:1 ἦλθεν set out, travel or arrive?

Post by Tim Evans »

Why does this the basic point of discussion for this verb recurrently go to the discussion of whether it means "go" or "come"?
I didn't mean to suggest the question was identical, but they are certainly related.

Your question gives the options "set out", "travel" or "arrive". True your question is a little different, but they both partially come down to matters of perspective or position of the viewer, so they are related. (And yes, isn't "I will set out", "I will depart", "I will go" the same, as are "I have arrived", "I have come")

I am no greek expert, but I also wonder if the answers are the same, that is to say, if the greek is left ambiguous, (as in the text itself truly it is ambiguous), then the author or speaker would have been aware and comfortable with that ambiguity. If they wanted to make it less ambiguous, or it needed to be less ambiguous, then they could have been more specific.
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Mt.28:1 ἦλθεν set out, travel or arrive?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

I'm sorry. I didn't quote the verse under consideration. I was absorbed in the moment, and thought we were sitting together and talking and you could see what I could. I forgot that are on other sides of the internet.
Matthew 28:1 wrote:Ὀψὲ δὲ σαββάτων, τῇ ἐπιφωσκούσῃ εἰς μίαν σαββάτων, ἦλθεν Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνή, καὶ ἡ ἄλλη Μαρία, θεωρῆσαι τὸν τάφον.
Tim Evans wrote:Aren't you basically asking the same thing in the original post, but with "arrive" vs. "be on the way" instead of "come" and "go," respectively?
Perhaps I am, and perhaps not. Let me speak my mind more fully and you can decide for yourself.

With regard to the arrangement of time:
  • ὀψέ is a long period of time, which fits somewhere at the end of the day.
    τῇ ἐπιφωσκούσῃ is a dative bringing attention to a moment in time.
    εἰς is a small context preposition, expressing a change, something like "They came/went into the room.", implying that they were in the hall, and after that they came/went through the doorway and changed rooms. The rays of sunshine came from the horizon and the Roman civil day began. Here, where there is no movement, but only a change of state, εἰς is very much like ἐγένετο.
    μία σαββάτων is the (whole) first day of the week. (The first hour would be a form of πρώτη).
    ἦλθεν is an action that is naturally long. The aorist doesn't seem to change that because ἤρχετο/ἤρχοντο are used sparingly and only in one of two specific senses.
Tim Evans wrote:if the greek is left ambiguous, (as in the text itself truly it is ambiguous), then the author or speaker would have been aware and comfortable with that ambiguity. If they wanted to make it less ambiguous, or it needed to be less ambiguous, then they could have been more specific.
It seems that the time reference markers are very specific, because there is a degree of redundancy in them. Let me draw them, and a few more:
Image
(NB. τὸ πρωί as shown there is used in the context of the Jewish diurnal cycle, while ὀψέ is within the civil. That's why there is an apparent overlap.)
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
George F Somsel
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Re: Mt.28:1 ἦλθεν set out, travel or arrive?

Post by George F Somsel »

Simply looking at the basic word ἔρχομαι in the aorist indicative I find 171 uses in the NT. A quick (not exhaustive) review of the instances seems to indicate that in the aorist the word indicates having arrived at a particular location. A participle would, however, be another matter subject to the contextual limitations of the text. Remember: CONTEXT IS KING.
george
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RandallButh
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Re: Mt.28:1 ἦλθεν set out, travel or arrive?

Post by RandallButh »

May I humbly point out a datum that changes much of this discussion?
The rays of sunshine came from the horizon
The Greek verb ἐπιφώσκειν probably has nothing to do with sunrise in a Jewish context. Please look carefully at the context of Luke 23:50ff, the other place in the NT where that verb is used. Luke 23:54 refers to the Sabbath "dawning" and refers to the descent of the EVENING. Likewise, late on the Sabbath and the "dawning" of the first day of the week, the natural Jewish reference is to what we would call the onset of Saturday evening. (There was an idiom for this in Hebrew [and yes, in its Jewish Aramaic reflex as well, but those are later than the Hebrew data] אור ליום... "or l[yom]" 'light to the [day of] ...' referring to the onset of the evening.
See Mishna PesaHim 1:1, 1:3.

Consequently, one should delete the "sunrise" from the scenario of the description for Matt 28:1. For more information see my article "A Hebraic approach to Luke and the resurrection accounts: still needing to re-do Dalman and Moulton" in the Cignelli festschrift. (Not found in your local bookstore everywhere, 'cepting maybe Jerusalem.)
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Mt.28:1 ἦλθεν set out, travel or arrive?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Eusebius seems to make a significant distinction between and ὀψὲ Σαββάτων and τὴν ὀψινὴν ὥραν τοῦ Σαββάτου. He then says clearly that, (in his understanding), it is the morning.
EUSEBIUS Scr. Eccl. et Theol. Quaestiones evangelicae ad Marinum {2018.029} Volume 22 page 941 line 53 wrote:Ἀλλὰ γὰρ ἡγοῦμαι διὰ τούτων ἀποδείκνυσθαι τὸ παρὰ τῷ Ματθαίῳ λεγόμενον ὀψὲ Σαββάτων, μὴ τὴν ὀψινὴν ὥραν τοῦ Σαββάτου σημαίνειν, μηδὲ τὸν ἑσπερινὸν καιρόν· αὐτὸς Ματθαῖος ἐπήγαγεν τὴν ἐπιφώσκουσαν ὥραν εἰς μίαν Σαββάτων, ἥτις ἦν πρωῒ, ἔτι σκοτίας οὔσης κατὰ τὸν Ἰωάννην
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
RandallButh
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Re: Mt.28:1 ἦλθεν set out, travel or arrive?

Post by RandallButh »

Stephen Hughes wrote:Eusebius seems to make a significant distinction between and ὀψὲ Σαββάτων and τὴν ὀψινὴν ὥραν τοῦ Σαββάτου. He then says clearly that, (in his understanding), it is the morning.
EUSEBIUS Scr. Eccl. et Theol. Quaestiones evangelicae ad Marinum {2018.029} Volume 22 page 941 line 53 wrote:Ἀλλὰ γὰρ ἡγοῦμαι διὰ τούτων ἀποδείκνυσθαι τὸ παρὰ τῷ Ματθαίῳ λεγόμενον ὀψὲ Σαββάτων, μὴ τὴν ὀψινὴν ὥραν τοῦ Σαββάτου σημαίνειν, μηδὲ τὸν ἑσπερινὸν καιρόν· αὐτὸς Ματθαῖος ἐπήγαγεν τὴν ἐπιφώσκουσαν ὥραν εἰς μίαν Σαββάτων, ἥτις ἦν πρωῒ, ἔτι σκοτίας οὔσης κατὰ τὸν Ἰωάννην
Τhank you, Stephen, that is a nice quote, showing that Evsevios could do what moderns do. It also suggests that the most natural reading might have been Saturday nightfall [τὴν ὀψινὴν ὥραν τοῦ Σαββάτου] except for a Greek re-understanding of the word ἐπιφώσκειν. Could you get a quote of Evsevios on Luke 23:54? Says me from Tanzania.
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