antecedents

Mike Sangrey mike at sojurn.lns.pa.us
Mon Jul 17 15:52:53 EDT 2000



Rick H. Duggin <rduggin at juno.com> said:
>    Wallace says, "What might be the nearest antecedent  contextually
> might not be the nearest antecedent in the author's mind" (Gk. Grammar
> Beyond Basics, p.326, discussing demonstratives). Does this mean that
> the issue rests merely upon the context of  the passage, as my
> suggestions above indicate?    

Not to *prove* one way or the other, but there is an interesting exchange
in Luke 22:47 - 23:25.  The name "Jesus" is rather infrequently used
even though other names are brought to the fore to disambiguate the
antecedents.  Jonathan M. Watt argues in "Discourse Analysis and the
New Testament" under the chapter "Pronouns of Shame and Disgrace in Luke
22:63-64" the following:

    "Not even once during the course of the arrest and Peter's
    denial (Lk.  22:54-62), the mockery (22:63-65), or the morning
    proceedings (22:66-67), is Jesus identified by name.  Instead,
    the preponderance of the masculine pronoun AUTOS `he/him', the
    demonstrative pronoun/adjective hOUTOS `this/that one', or just
    `the man' is striking..."

However, I'll observe that Luke does mention "Jesus" by name at rather
strategic (semantically speaking) times.

Watt starts the chapter with:

    "The observation of Saussure that `Language is a social fact' is more
    specifically drawn out by HALLIDAY (1978: 3) when he states that
    `language *actively symbolizes* the social system, representing
    metaphorically in its patterns of variation the variation that
    characterize human culture'.  When a speaker selects from his
    repertoire one form of speech over another, his sociocultural
    environment is being incorporated, in some way or another, into
    his operation code. [emphasis his]"

His point is that there is a "power semantic" functioning in the text
which causes the author to portray Jesus as nameless.  Thus the closest
antecedent is not the one in the author's mind.

BTW, Jonathan Watt also has examples from the OT.





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