Mark 6:2 POQEN TOUTWi TAUTA
Mary L B Pendergraft
pender at wfu.edu
Sun Aug 9 21:21:05 EDT 1998
At 07:23 PM 8/9/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Mark 6:2 has this phrase:
>
> POQEN TOUTWi TAUTA
>
>I'm uncertain that I am reading it correctly. Should I read it like this?
>
>POQEN whence
>TOUTWi unto this one
>TAUTA these things
>
>So the whole phrase means basically "where did this one get these things
>from?" And what kind of dative is TOUTWi - is it a pure dative, "to/for
>this one"?
Yes, I think you're right; and the next phrase offers a very close parallel:
KAI TIS H SOFIA H DOQEISA TOUTWi
"and what is the wisdom that was given to him?"
Or is it instrumental "by this one" - "whence come these things
>by means of this one?" Granted, that last sentence isn't English, but I
>hope it is clear what I'm trying to say.
I think this is less likely: it's far more usual for a personal agent to
be expressed with hUPO + genitive, and for the instrumental dative to be
restricted to impersonal notions--with strength, with a sword, and so on.....
>Also: how unusual is this phrase? What social register would it belong to?
That I don't know. It doesn't sound particularly odd to me; good Classical
Greek can be comparably elliptical, esp. in contexts that intend to sound
conversational, like the dialogue.
Mary
>
>Jonathan
>
Mary Pendergraft
Associate Professor of Classical Languages
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem NC 27109-7343
336-758-5331 (NOTE: this is a new number) pender at wfu.edu
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