[B-Greek] MARIAM in Luke 1:46

Polycarp66 at aol.com Polycarp66 at aol.com
Fri Dec 26 17:31:19 EST 2003


In a message dated 12/26/2003 2:33:36 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
tedsmath at yahoo.com writes:
Williams Smith wrote:
> 
> In Luke 1:46, the name MARIAM is undeclinable. Is
> there any grammatical reason why it could not be
> translated as a dative (“and she said to Mary”)
> instead of a nominative (“and Mary said”)?

This is not an answer.  This is a related question, 
for those of you who know Greek better than I do.

I'm going to guess that, when using an undeclined name, 
one interpretation often "stands out" over the others.  
For example, in the text named above, "Mary said" 
seems a better first guess than "She said to Mary".
(That's just my take on it -- 
if you disagree, then my point is lost.)
If the author intends to say something other than 
the "interpretation that stands out", he would do
well to indicate it somehow, e.g. using an article:
EIPE hH MARIAM  "Mary said"
or
EIPE TH MARIAM  "She said to Mary".
________

In the few cases where a name appears as the subject of EIPEN the article is 
used, but also in the great majority of cases where (a) person(s) is/are 
addressed the dative of the definite is used.  Frequently when a common noun (such 
as BASILEUS :-) ) is used as the subject the nom. of the article preceeds the 
noun as well.  I think little or nothing can be determined based on the usage 
in the LXX/NT.

gfsomsel



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