Ephesians ~ Generic Dative?
Mary L B Pendergraft
pender at f1n7.sp2net.wfu.edu
Mon Apr 26 11:41:20 EDT 1999
At 04:56 PM 4/24/99 -0500, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>I respond to this only as an unregenerate orthodox believer in traditional
>Greek grammar; while I am dubious occasionally about some particular
>interpretation of traditional grammatical categories, I am not yet quite
>ready to abandon them in favor of attacking a text armed with nothing more
>than intuition and imagination.
May I add my voice to Carl's in this discussion about the phrase ESTE
SESWiSMENOI? It is quite true, as has been argued, that ESTE "stands
alone" in innumerable examples. But the same is not true of perfect
passive participles. While not precisely rare, they are much less common
than either presents or aorists. Furthermore, Carl's right that the most
natural way to read a form of EIMI + perf. pass. participle is as a
periphrastic form of the verb. It happens all the time and is not unusual
at all.
Mary
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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