PRHNHS GENOMENOS in Acts !: 18

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Jul 14 17:21:02 EDT 2000


At 5:11 PM -0400 7/14/00, Joseph William Garnier wrote:
>Acts 1: 18 reads in the Edito Regia/Textus Receptus:
>OUTON MEN OUN EKTHSATO CWRION EK TOU MISQOU THN ADIKIANS KAI PRHNHS
>GENOMENOS ELAKHSEN MESOS KAI EXECUQH PANTA TA SPLAGCNA AUTOU
>
>My trouble is in understanding by what rule they have rendered PRHNHS
>GENOMENOS as "falling headlong" (KJV, NASV, NRSV).  Is there precedent in
>rendering GENOMENOS as falling?  How can GENOMENOS be justifiably
>translated other than becoming, existing, or happening?  How is PRHNHS,
>said to be derived from PRO, understood as headlong?  Would a better idea,
>and more faithful to its derivation, be illustrated by a phrase such as
>"head before heels," or "head over heels," or "head first."  Could one of
>you who are major Greeks help this fledgling scholar?

The verb GI(G)NOMAI may be used with any adjective in the sense of "come to
be." Thus YUCROS EGENETO hO KHROS "The wax BECAME COLD" = "The wax cooled"
or we even have expressions like hHMERA GINETAI = "Day breaks" or NUX
GINETAI = "Night falls." So in Acts 1:18 PRHNHS GENOMENOS means "having
come to be forward-facing" = "having fallen on his face" or "having come to
be face-forward."

-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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