adverbial use of prepositional phrase in Luke 23:43?

Steven Lo Vullo slovullo at mac.com
Sun Sep 29 00:39:08 EDT 2002


On Thursday, September 26, 2002, at 07:09 AM, Kevin Buchs wrote:

> My Question:  The verb of being (ESHi) takes a complement that gives
> the state or place of being, in this case, EN TWi PARADEISWi.  Steven
> suggests the MET' EMOU is also a adverbial complement of ESHi while
> Carl identifies it as the complement of ESHi EN TWi PARADEISWi.
> English translations typically read, for me at least, with "with me"
> and "in paradise" being parallel.  Syntactically, I see something
> different about MET' EMOU in that it preceeds the verb.  Could this
> prepositional phrase be understood to serve a different adverbial
> function?  Could it answer questions such as, what is the antecedent
> condition to the verb taking effect, or under what conditions would
> the verb take effect?  In my simplistic thinking on grammer, I see "in
> paradise" clearly serving as identifying the state/place of being.
> "With me" could also certainly do that, but I would then imagine that
> would be better indicated by this prepositional phrase following the
> verb as the other does, not preceeding it.  English translations do
> not follow this ordering.  Does it not communicate something different
> in English to say, "today with me you will be in paradise." ?
>
> Thank you for any further thoughts you might have on this.

Kevin:

I think Carl and I were saying the same thing.

Yes, as Carl indicated in his response, MET' EMOU is in a more 
prominent position than EN TWi PARADEISWi. This would indicate that 
being with Jesus is the more prominent idea than being in paradise, 
although being in paradise is nothing to shake a stick at. Being with 
the person is more important than being in the place, as great as the 
place is. As far as serving to indicate something like antecedent 
condition, this, I think, is more a theological conclusion than 
syntactical.

As far as preceding the verb or following, that does not change the 
meaning of the prepositional phrase, just its relative prominence in 
the clause.

I'm guessing the reason English translations do not follow the order of 
the original is that it makes for unnatural English. It seems to me we 
would be more apt to say, "Today you will be with me in paradise," than 
"Today with me you will be in paradise."

As a side note, there is something similar in 1 Th 4.17 (PANTOTE SUN 
KURIWi ESOMETHA, "always with the Lord we will be"), although with only 
one prepositional phrase. There we have adverb-prepositional phrase of 
association-future verb of being. The prepositional phrase indicating 
association is fronted here as in Luke 23.43. Could Jesus' words 
recorded in Luke 23.43 lie behind Paul's (and the early Church's) 
thoughts here?
============

Steven R. Lo Vullo
Madison, WI




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