Passive Lying?
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Jun 21 05:17:26 EDT 2002
At 11:35 PM -0400 6/20/02, William Hale Boyd wrote:
>I am looking at Matthew 5:11.
>How could their lying be passive (YEUDOMENOI) if they were saying it
>actively (EIPWSIN)?
>
>EIPWSIN PAN PONHRON KAQ hUMWV YEUDOMENOI
The clear and fairly obvious answer to the question is that it is NOT
passive. What is evidently misunderstood here is that YEUDOMENOI is not
passive but middle. Although an active form of this verb is attested in the
sense "represent as false," or "call false," the active is exceedingly rare
and not found in the GNT at all. The standard form for "lie" or "speak
falsehood" is the middle voice, YEUDOMAI.
--
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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