1 Corinthians 13:8 part of it

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Oct 17 06:46:14 EDT 2002


Forwarded for George Somsel <Polycarp66 at aol.com>
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2002 00:47:57 EDT

In a message dated 10/16/2002 11:21:44 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
waldoslusher at yahoo.com writes:

>EITE DE PROFHTEIAI KATARGHQHSONTAI
>EITE GLWSSAI PAUSONTAI
>EITE GNWSIS KATARGHQHSETAI
>
>
>Whatever else can be argued with this well-known
>passage, is it safe to conclude that the passives of
>KATARGHQHSONTAI indicate that PROFHTEIAI and GNWSIS
>will cease by the DIRECT intervention of some
>agent/means, whereas GLWSSAI will cease (PAUSONTAI
>"middle") by some INDIRECT agent/means.
>
>On other uses of the "middle"---
>
>In Luke 8:24, Jesus commanded the wind and waters to
>cease, but no direct agent is stated as to why they
>ceased. They seemed to have ceased by themselves or
>INDIRECTLY as a result of Jesus' command. And in Acts
>21:32, the rioters ceased beating Paul, but they
>ceased by themselves (that is, there was an outside
>reason for ceasing, but the outside reason [the coming
>soldiers] did not DIRECTLY stop them.)
>


I'm not sure what you mean by direct or indirect means, but the traditional
understanding of the uses of the voices is a Wallace states in his grammar
[p. 38]

"The relation of the subject to the action or state of the verb is largely
determined by the voice of the verb.  If the voice is *active*, the subject
does the acting . . . ; if *passive*, the subject is acted upon . . . ; if
*middle*, the subject acts on itself or in its own behalf, or the stress is
placed on the subject . . ."

Daniel B. Wallace. (1999;2002). Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics -
Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament. Zondervan Publishing House and
Galaxie Software.

I can remember in 1st yr. Greek reading through some sentence with a verb
in the middle voice and having to translate it as "X for himself" and
thought it a rather dumb way to translate (and I still do), but that's the
way it was done.

gfsomsel



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