Acts 2:23

Joe Friberg JoeFriberg at alumni.utexas.net
Thu Aug 12 00:27:57 EDT 1999


NOTE: This message was originally prepared early yesterday (8/10), but 
unfortunately my outgoing email was not working (and I did not realize it). 
 In the interim, several messages have been posted to this thread, and 
while there appears to be some overlap between this and other messages, I 
am sending the message unedited.  --Joe F.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Neil Mendoza [mailto:pistos at pacbell.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 1999 12:39 AM

> Recently I contacted Daniel B. Wallace about Acts 2:23 and if he believed
> it contains an example of Granville Sharp's rule.  I had previously 
> encounted it as an example of Sharp's rule in one of Kenneth 
> Wuest's books, 
> but couldn't find it as an example in any Greek grammar.  When Wallace's
> grammar came out with the most examples of Sharp's rule I was 
> disappointed 
> to find Acts 2:23 absent from this section.  Anyways, he informed me that
> he disagrees with Wuest and doesn't believe it to be an example 
> of Sharp's 
> rule because it is impersonal construction.  

Wallace (pp. 270-72) discusses the instigation and specifications of 
Granville Sharp's rule, which was originally stated to focus narrowly on 
the construction 'article + personal substantive description + kai + 
personal substantive description' for the specific purpose of butressing 
the case from the NT for the deity of Christ (i.e., Ti 2.13, 2 Pt 1.1).  
Granville Sharp's focus and interest were narrowly theological, and Wallace 
wants to maintain the same delineation.

However, in general, an 'article + coordinated nouns' construction does 
indicate a close association of the nouns in some form of hendiadys (see my 
email of 7/22/99 for suggested categories of hendiadys).  Many grammarians 
apparently call this more general principle 'Granville Sharp's rule' (cf. 
Greenlee p. 23).

> I also noticed 
> elsewhere that 
> Stephen Baugh says it is an example of a hendiadys, in which the copula
> substitutes a subordinating clause.  I just don't see this when I read 
> BOULE KAI PROGNOSEI (counsel and foreknowledge), two nouns in the 
> same case 
> and person connected by KAI.  

I'm not sure what he means here; is he referring to a translation value of 
something like 'the appointed plan, which is the foreknowledge of God'??

> Can someone tell me why this is a hendiadys 
> and not an example of Granville Sharp's rule?



More information about the B-Greek mailing list