Philippians 1:9-11

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Sep 21 06:17:04 EDT 1999


At 12:13 PM +0000 9/21/99, alexali wrote:
>I have been following the Phil 1:9-11 strand with more interest than time.
>Michael Haggert wrote of DIAFERW and its meaning, "I'm not at all sure that
>DIAFERW ever means 'be better than' except by a tortuous route.  Apart from
>the fairly obvious 'carry across' meaning, the other meaning is either 'to
>be different' or 'to make a difference'."
>
>I rather think that to speak of DIAFERW as having a "fairly obvious"
>meaning and an "other" meaning is a little unkind to the word, for it has a
>breadth of meanings.  I've recently been reading some of the papyri from
>early POxy volumes;  to allude to just a few of the meanings as
>illustrative of its breadth . . .

It is good, I think, to be reminded, as in this very informative note from
our Australian friend, Dr. Alexander Hopkins, of the importance of the
lexicographic data from the papyri that enrich our capacity to understand
Hellenistic Greek. I think much of what has been learned from those data
has been incorporated into Glare's most recent supplement to LSJ, but it
good for us to be made cognizant, from time to time, that all of what "we
know" of the Koine of the Hellenistic and Roman world we know only EK
MEROUS.


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
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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