Luke 18:11

Richard Allan Stauch rstauch at charter.net
Wed Aug 7 02:40:12 EDT 2002


-----Original Message-----
From: Chet Creider 
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 5:12 PM
To: Biblical Greek
Subject: [b-greek] Luke 18:11

Some time ago I asked for assistance with determining the meaning of
the preposition in the following phrase from Luke 18:11:
       hO FARISAIOS STAQEIS TAUTA PROS hEAUTON PROSHUCETO
[Snip]
BDAG:
The 3rd edition has an extensive discussion of PROS and cites the phrase
in Luke 18:11 under sense 3, subsense g.  Sense 3 is the familiar
"movement
or orientation toward s.o./s.t." and subsense g is "by, at, near".
However,
the actual gloss given for the phrase in Luke is "he uttered a prayer to
himself".  This strikes me as not likely given that the verb is
PROSHUCETO.
[Snip]
Chet A. Creider

P.S.  Here is the original post:

===================
What is the sense of the preposition PROS in Luke 18:11:
hO FARISAIOS STAQEIS TAUTA PROS hEAUTON PROSHUCETO

Zerwick and Grosvenor suggest "within", and I have seen "with" and
"about" (all followed by "himself") in various English translations.
Metzger (_A Textual Commentary..._, 2nd ed.) notes that the preposition
has caused difficulty and is replaced with KATA in some versions and
in others omitted entirely.
[End paste]

Chet,

Just a quick note: In English idiom, it is quite right to say that one
prays "to oneself" without intending to mean that the object of the
prayer is, in fact, oneself. The meaning could just as easily be that
one is keeping one's prayer quiet enough not to be intelligible to
others around. 

I am comfortable, therefore, with most of the English translations that
make this "with himself" or "to himself." Young's Literal Translation
(1862/1898) bats the text around (uncharacteristically), with "the
Pharisee having stood by himself, thus prayed." I am completely unhappy
with the NIV, which makes it "about himself," though the context surely
supports that. I think it could be, "The Pharisee, [having] stood by
himself,* he prayed..." -- *ergo, "alone", or "separate from others."

Richard Allan Stauch
Long Beach, CA







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