Mk 3.5 ~ Middle Voice

George Blaisdell maqhth at hotmail.com
Wed Apr 14 15:56:40 EDT 1999





>From: "Moon-Ryul Jung" 

>Dear Carl,
>
>You wrote:
>>It may not be
>> the easiest thing to convey in English, but on the other hand, it's 
not out
>> of question to convey PERIBLEYAMENOS as "after casting his glance 

around
>> the room."

>I have some questions prompted by this thread.
>
>1) After joining this mailing list, I seem to learn a lot about the 

middle
>voice of Biblical Greek. But I remember that I read some book which
>said the force of the middle voice almost disappeared in BG. What is
>the rationale for this claim or hypothesis?
>
>2. How does the translation "casting HIS glanace around the room" 
>incorporate the reflexive meaning of the form? 
>
>3. What would the active form PERIBLEYAS be translated?

Moon ~

I know you were addressing Carl, but perhaps a little window on the 
middle voice might be helpful.  I had a hard time with it for a long 
time!  Until I discovered its potential for being viewed as the 
"inner" voice of the verb.  The active directs the action outward, and 
the passive receives the action from without, and the middle is simply 
the actor acting from within him/her self, and it can be transitive ~ 
that is it can have outward effect.

I seem to remember that the very early Greek language ONLY used the 
middle forms...  But that is a topic on which Carl would do MUCH 
better than I possibly could.  If true, then understanding the middle 
voice as the voice that would be used IF there were no other voice to 
use would help one to understand it.

PERIBLEYAMENOS as simply "looking around" seems to work OK, yes?

My 2 cents...


 
George Blaisdell 
Roslyn, WA 


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