Questions about Mark 5:1-20

Carlton Winbery winberyc at popalex1.linknet.net
Thu Jul 30 04:44:55 EDT 1998


Jonathan Robbie wrote;

>I have two questions about this section:
>
>1. In verses 3-4, the construction "oude halusei ouketi oudeis edunato
>auton dhsai, dia...", combined with what follows, seems to have two
>possible meanings, which hinge on the intepretation of the phrase "oudeis
>iscuen auton damasai". If "damasai" means literally to subdue, then this
>would imply that the man had been successfully chained or shackled in the
>past, but he had always gotten free, and now nobody could chain him or
>shackle him at all. Is this the right way to read this?

I think that this would be indicated but moreso by the presence of OUKETI,
no longer.

>2. In verse 8, the construction "exelqe to pneuma to akaqarton ek tou
>anqrwpou" is confusing - "exelqe" is second person imperative, but he seems
>to be speaking to the spirits, yet referring to them in the same phrase in
>the nominative (not vocative). How is the syntax of this to be interpreted?
>
You've found one of the places where the first inflected form of TO PNEUMA
TO AKAQARTON is used as a vocative.  The only words that have a separate
vocative form in the NT masc. sing. nouns.  Hence the statement reported
that was saying (repeating?) is "Unclean spirit!  Come out of the man!"


Carlton L. Winbery
Fogleman Professor of Religion
Louisiana College
Pineville, LA 71359
winberyc at popalex1.linknet.net
winbery at andria.lacollege.edu






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