Roman 3:23

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Jul 2 17:46:34 EDT 2002


At 11:36 PM +0200 7/2/02, Iver Larsen wrote:
>> The verb hUSTEREW appears 16x in the GNT, 8x in active forms, 8x in MP
>> forms, including one QH participle which is indeed middle rather than
>> passive in meaning. There doesn't really appear to be any difference in
>> sense between the active and middle: all the forms are intransitive in
>> sense.
>> --
>>
>> Carl W. Conrad
>
>I am curious if there might be a slight difference of meaning between the
>active and middle. Looking at these 16 instances in the GNT, I am proposing
>a hypothesis which may be just speculation.
>Would it be possible to think of the active forms as "lacking completely"
>and the middle forms as "falling short"?
>It would correspond to two nuances of the statement: "I lack money":
>a) I don't have any money at all
>b) I have a little money but not enough, i.e. I am short of money
>
>(Such a minor distinction would probably be neutralized in a negative
>expression like "I am not lacking anything")
>
>I looked up in BAGD, but found nothing useful in terms of trying to
>distinguish the active forms from what they call the passive (what is better
>called middle or MP).

I don't think so, Iver, but I wouldn't want to be dogmatic about this. I do
note that Paul's letters all have the middle voice (and, as I've said, I'd
consider the -QH- form middle rather than passive. My sense is that the
verb is in flux, in process of becoming middle. I note that in LXX the verb
appears 19x, 16x active, 3x middle. I'll take a closer look at the
individual cases before coming down against what you're arguing: you may
well be right.

>By the way, Carl, I hope you over there will soon adopt the metric system
>and join ranks with the rest of us -:)

Frankly I do too! But I am not very confident of it as something that will
happen in my lifetime. I feel a considerable sense of fulfillment having
lived to see the publication of BDAG; my next hoped-for consummation
(this-worldly) is publication of the new grammar of Hellenistic Greek to
supplant BDF (or BDR for European users).
-- 

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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