Datives with Prepositions
Carl Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Nov 22 13:07:33 EST 2002
> According to Machen (p.60) and Robertson's Grammar, "the dative is not used
> with prepositions." Of course, we do have EN+dative constructions (1 John
> 5:20), which according to the archives:
> >EN+dative means "in". I think it is easiest to think of the dative
> >as part of the EN, but you could probably think of it as a locative
> >dative, which expresses place and time. In this case, it would be
> >the dative of place.
>
> However, according to Zerwick, the "'dative of place' is absent from the NT."
> (Biblical Greek, p. 20).
> Is this another example of a 5 versus 8 case system? Is the EN+dative not a
> "true" dative, and should it be expressed, as in 1 Jn 5:20:
> "In union with him" Goodspeed
> "indissolubly bound to" Barclay
> "part of" Unvarnished NT
> "by means of" NWT
> "with" Fenton
I suspect that at least two factors are at play in an assertion that the
"dative of place" is absent from the NT: (1) a notion that EN + dative
isn't a "dative of place"; (2) perhaps a conception that EN is simply a
preposition always taking a dative and that it's the combined EN +
dative-construction that bears the meaning, whether of location or
instrument or association. And perhaps the 5-case/8-case dispute (whether
one espouses the 5-case notion) has something to do with it too. But: I
hardly see what else Jn 1:23 EN THi ERHMWi, or Jn 1:28 EN BHQANIAi are if
not "dative of place."
To be sure, I taught classical Attic rather than NT Koine; I taught about
the dative that there are three kinds: (1) "true" dative, normally of
persons to whom or for whom there is a concern or action indicated in the
clause; (2) instrumental-comitative, indicating means or persons or things
associated with an action; (3) locative, usually with EN, indicating
stationery position in space or time. Now there are a few instances in
classical Attic of EN with an instrumental dative; in Hellenistic Greek
this becomes much more common and I would apply it to 1 Jn 5:20 as you
suggest above. I suspect that the LXX translators used EN + dative
regularly to convey the sense of the Hebrew preposition B'.
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