[B-Greek] Mark 1.14

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Nov 6 05:51:46 EST 2003


At 10:31 AM +0000 11/6/03, Mark Goodacre wrote:
>On 5 Nov 2003 at 6:52, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
>> Is it even necessary to characterize this genitive as either
>> "subjective" or "objective"? I've argued here before that these are
>> translation matters rather than anything inherent in the Greek
>> formulation. All the subcategories of adnominal/adjectival genitive
>> listed in many grammars are interpretative categories rather than
>> descriptive of anything inherent in the Greek text; I sometimes think
>> the nearest thing to this in English is the hyphenated form,
>> "God-gospel"--every bit as unspecific as the Greek TO EUAGGELION TOU
>> QEOU. --
>
>Thanks; point taken about characterizing subjective and objective
>genitives.  But it's the translation issue that I was trying to get
>at by asking whether to read TOU QEOU in Mark 1.14 as an subjective
>genitive.  So let me rephrase my question in this way:  what are the
>merits of a translation that understands TO EUAGGELION TOU QUEOU in
>Mark 1.14 as "the gospel from God".  Contextually, it seems to me
>that this is how it may work.  Jesus has been declared God's AGAPHTOS
>at his baptism, has gone away into the desert to be tested, and now
>goes to Galilee to preach the gospel that God has given to him.  He
>has received the gospel from God, not from anyone else; he is now
>God's prophet and is ready to announce the content of that gospel. 
>The content is "The time is fulfilled; the kingdom of God is at
>hand".  And the appropriate reaction is "Repent and believe in the
>gospel" (Mark 1.15).  This time EUAGGELION appears without TOU QEOU --
> it is taken for granted that the gospel has come from God.  Thus the
>content of the gospel is not "God";  God is the source;  the content
>is "The time is fulfilled; the kingdom of God is at hand."  So the
>sequence of thought is something like this:
>
>(1) Jesus is anointed by God;
>(2) Jesus receives the gospel from God
>(3) Jesus preaches that gospel
>(4) The content of that gospel is that the kingdom of God is at hand
>(5) The appropriate reaction to that gospel is to repent and believe
>it.

All this is certainly plausible, Mark, but (a) it's no longer a question
about what the text must mean but rather, as you say, of translation and
interpretation--not matters that can be resolved by analysis of the Greek
text as a Greek text, but rather matters that depend upon how one
understands the immediate and broader context of a text whose Greek sense
is already reasonably clear, and (b) I'm not sure it's compelling. Is JnBpt
not engaged in proclamation of the EUAGGELION? How are you understanding
EUAGGELION IHSOU CRISTOU in Mk 1:1? EUAGGELION appears relatively rarely in
Mk: Mark 1:1,14-15; 8:35; 10:29; 13:10; 14:9; 16:15 (I wouldn't count
16:15), and only once with TOU QEOU. So, although I think it's plausible,
it really doesn't seem compelling to me.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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