PRWTH in Lk 2:2

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Sep 25 13:21:47 EDT 1998


At 11:15 PM -0500 9/25/98, dd-1 at juno.com wrote:
>Denny Diehl here  with a question concerning
>
>PRWTH as used in Lk 2:2:
>
>"AUTH  APOGRAQH  PRWTH  EGENETO..."
>
>usually translated:  "This was the first census taken..."
>
>In Jn 15:18, PRWTON is translated "before".  Is it possible
>to translate PRWTH in Lk 2:2 with "before" making it:
>
>"This was before the census taken..."?
>
>Or is it too awkward to translate it that way?  Thank you.

Actually, although the adjectival forms PRWTH and PRWTON in both texts are 
predicative, they are nevertheless used in somewhat different ways. Here 
are the texts transcribed after the normal BG fashion:

Lk 2:2 hAUTH APOGRAFH PRWTH EGENETO hHGEMONEUONTOS THS SURIAS KURHNIOU

Jn 15:18 EI hO KOSMOS hUMAS MISEI, GINWSKETE hOTI EME PRWTON hUMWN MEMISHKEN.

One fact about PRWTOS/A/ON that is perhaps not adequately appreciated is 
that it is a superlative ("foremost," "frontmost") form of an adjective 
that has a comparative (PROTEROS/A/ON) but no simple positive form, since 
the preposition PRO and the adverb PRIN normally function as a positive 
form of the adjective would.

In fact, in Jn 15:18 PRWTON is used predicatively and construed with the 
verb MEMISHKEN but with a comparative force that is complemented by the 
ablatival genitive hUMWN: "hated me as one (hated) previous than (to) you" 
= "hated me earlier than you."

Lk 2:2 is a bit different; although PRWTH is predicative and must be 
construed closely with the verb EGENETO, "took place foremost" = "took 
place for the first time." To be noted are: (1) there is no comparable 
ablatival genitive functioning with PRWTH here as hUMWN functioned with 
PRWTON in Jn 15:18; (2) since there is no article with PRWTH that would 
clearly mark it as having attributive force and so belonging to APOGRAFH 
(it would have to be either hAUTH hH PRWTH APOGRAFH or hAUTH hH APGRAFH hH 
PRWTH), it cannot legitimately be understood as meaning "the first census" 
but rather must be understood as meaning "took place as the first one." 
Perhaps these sound like the mean the same thing in English, but the 
difference in the Greek is important: it means that the census had NOT ever 
taken place prior to the governorship of Quirinius.

There is another factor here that might conceivably be (and, I'm sure, has 
indeed been suggested, since this verse is crucial in its indication of the 
year 6 A.D. as the time of the census in question)--perhaps this is even 
what you're suggesting in your query: that the genitive hHGEMONEUONTOS THS 
SURIAS KURHNIOU should be understood as an ablatival genitive construed 
with PRWTH, so that the verse might be understood to mean: "This census was 
held before Quirinius was governor of Syria." While on the surface this 
might seem plausible, it is so improbable in terms of ordinary idiom that 
it doesn't deserve to be taken seriously: (1) Luke does regularly use the 
genitive absolute construction with the name of an official to indicate the 
year (Lk 3:1ff.); (2) the more normal sort of adverbial construction to 
indicate that this census took place before the governorship of Quirinius 
would, I think be something like PRIN hHGEMONEUSAI THS SURIAS 
KURHNION--i.e. an aorist infinitive with an accusative subject following 
upon PRIN; implicit in this, I think, is what seems to me obligatory to 
understand as the implication of the present participle hHGEMONEUONTOS: 
that the census took place WHILE QUIRINIUS WAS GOVERNING, not before it (or 
after it either, for that matter).

In sum, I really don't see any way to construe the Greek so that PRWTH with 
that genitive phrase including a present participle of the verb can point 
to a census held prior to the governorship of Quirinius.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad at yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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