Galatians 2:1

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun Nov 18 09:22:03 EST 2001


At 1:33 PM +0000 11/18/01, Keith Thompson wrote:
>Hi!
>  Thanks for clearing up the problem with DIA DEKATESSARWN ETWN. The
>translation which didn't say 'after fourteen years' translates most
>idioms literally (Green's Literal Translation) and had 'through fourteen
>years'.
>  So is it definitely or only probably an idiomatic usage here? Is it
>possible it could mean 'during fourteen years'? I was looking at 1:18,
>EPEITA META (TRIA ETH / ETH TRIA) ANHLQON EIS hIEROSOLUMA, is it just
>for variety both a different verb and a different phrase are used? Or
>does DIA+genitive of time always mean 'after'?

Actually the META + accusative is closer to the literal English "after ...".

It occurred to me after dispatching the message yesterday that I should
have added a note such as I did when this came up one other time: the DIA +
genitive construction is closer to the English sort of expression, "I'll be
back in a week" or "I'll be back in seven days"; German has something like
"heute in acht Tagen"--all of which expressions indicate or imply an
interval of time preceding the anticipated action; they may or may not
indicate both terminals but there's an implicit interval between two
points, after which the action will or has taken place.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months: 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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