hUPOTASSOMAI

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Feb 24 12:07:54 EST 2000


At 6:25 PM +0200 2/24/00, Kevin Smith wrote:
>Greetings
>
>One of the glosses BAGD lists for hUPOTASSOMAI (middle form of hUPOTASSW)
>is 'obey'. It also offers 'be subject to' and 'obey' as glosses for
>hUPAKOUW. My question: What is the difference in nuance between these two
>words (with particular reference to passages where slaves are told to 'be
>subject to' their masters, wives to their husbands, etc.)
>
>What is the difference between telling a child to 'obey' (hUPAKOUW) his
>parents (Eph 6:1, Col 3:20) and telling wifes to submit to (hUPOTASSOMAI)
>their husbands (Eph 5:22, Col 3:18, Tit 2:5). What difference would there
>be between telling a slave to obey (hUPAKOUW) and telling him to submit to
>(hUPOTASSOAI) his master?

I don't want to cite the L&N articles, but they suggest that hUPAKOUW means
submission based upon attentiveness to what one is being told, while
hUPOTASSOMAI is more a matter of doing what one is told because one knows
that one is subject to the other's unquestioned authority (they don't put
it that way, I do). And indeed there does seem to be a differentiation
between the two if you look at enough of the passages using each verb--and
yet, I think they overlap. I've also often wondered to what extent the
Latin verb OB-OEDIRE, which is really OB-AUDIRE, and which I think involves
more direct subordination to direct authority than hUPAKOUW regularly does,
may not influence later Greek usage of hUPAKOUW. I don't know for a fact
that it does, but I also think there's more overlap in meaning between the
two verbs that L&N seems to indicate.


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 
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