Rendering PRWTH as "earlier" in Luke 2:2
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Dec 12 20:58:22 EST 2000
At 10:31 PM +0000 12/12/00, Mark Wilson wrote:
>This quote may be of interest:
>
>A fragment stone discovered at Tivoli (near Rome) in A.D. 1764 contains
>an inscription in honor of a Roman official who, it states, was twice
>a Governor of Syria and Phoenicia during the reign of Augustus. The name
>of the official is not on the fragment, but more than likely, based on the
>accomplishments listed, is Quirinius. (paraphrased, John MacArthur)
>
>I take this only that Quirinius was possibly a governor twice.
>
>Now concerning Luke 2:2
>
>hAUTH APOGRAFH PRWTH EGENETO
>hHGEMONEUONTOS THS SYRIAS KURHNIOU
>
>
>Here is my question:
>
>Assuming the CT is correct, how about a construct that
>would closely (not exactly) look and function like:
>
>i) a Pendent Nominative for hAUTH APOGRAFH, and
>ii) taking PRWTH with the Gen. Absolute (somehow??)
HOW would you suggest? I really don't see how that could be done OTHER than
understanding the genitive absolute as a time reference for PRWTH EGENETO,
which again gives us "first occurred while Quirinius was governing Syria."
>yielding something close to:
>
>This Census: was when Q. was FIRST Governor of Syria.
>
>Or, if the MT text is correct, we would not need a
>Pendent Nom. idea, since the article would allow an attributive use.
I think we'd do best to keep any discussion focused on the text we have and
its legitimate possibilities; I really do think Dan Wallace's discussion
deals with this text and its legitimate possibilities as thoroughly and
carefully as possible.
--
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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