How to recognize hendiadys?

Mike Sangrey mike at sojurn.lns.pa.us
Sun Jun 20 05:57:11 EDT 1999



dpreznik at usa.net said:
> I am interested how to recognize hendiadys. For example, Ja 5:10:
> hUPODEIGMA ... THS KAKOPAQIAS KAI MAKROQUMIAS, "example... of
> suffering and  patience". BDB grammer says it to be an example of
> hendiadys, and transates  as: "perseverance in suffering". How can we
> know whether it is hendiadys,  or just listing?

> Dmitriy Reznik 

I would be very interested in this discussion, too.

Another text which illustrates one possible answer to your question is
Luke 2:47--EPI TH SUNESEI KAI TAIS APOKRINSESIN.  Here the components of
the list are not strictly parallel. If it would be "questions and answers"
or "wisdom and understanding", then we've got a list.  However, here we
have "intelligence and answers."  How could the teachers intuit Jesus's
intelligence if it wasn't by his answers?  Thus we have hendiadys--"the
teachers were amazed at his intelligent answers"; or at least that is my
thought.  (Another possibility is that Greek did not have an adjective
for intelligence.  Does it?)

The problems with this understanding of Luke 2:47, as I see them, are:
   1.  Each noun has the article.  Why would the author make each word
       definite if he is trying to so closely link them?
   2.  I don't consistently make the components of my lists in parallel
       Obviously, I'm not inspired, but neither was the GNT computer
       generated by some complex formula--it is koine. 

It seems to me that hendiadys could very easily be over-applied, so to my
Little Greek understanding, this is a very good question. Where's some
lines, even fuzzy ones?




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