[B-Greek] pepoithos in Greek New Testament Hebrews 2:13?

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Oct 28 14:10:52 EST 2003


At 5:56 AM +0000 10/28/03, Philip wrote:
>PepoiqwV is a difficult word to translate/ interpret
>I find PEPOIQWS in Greek New Testament Hebrews 2:13 a difficult
>word to interpret and translate. This is because as a participle[1], (i.e. a
>verbal adjective, having the characteristics of both verbs and adjectives),
>treating it either verbally or adjectivally in the Greek New Testament
>Hebrews 2:13 context does not yield any meaningful phrase. For example, the
>participle PEPOIQWS cannot be treated as an adjective in Greek
>New Testament Hebrews 2:13 because there is no noun or pronoun that it
>qualifies. Neither can PEPOIQWS be treated as a verb because of the
>post-ceeding word ESOMAI, which is also a verb. Treating PEPOIQWS
>as a verb will in effect be putting two verbs together which
>again will render the phrase, ESOMAI PEPOIQWS, and
>indeed the entire sentence in Greek New Testament Hebrews 2:13 meaningless.
>
>
>Any thoughts?

There have already been good responses to this question. I would add that
the future perfect is rather rare in Greek generally. One would do well to
consult Smyth §§580-584 (at the Perseus site, if one doesn't have it at
hand). Smyth §584 notes that the future perfect active is regularly formed
periphrastically (§600) and one finds in classical Attic only two
non-periphrastic future perfects: hESTHXW ("I shall stand") and TEQNHXW ("I
shall be dead"). I still remember my astonishment on discovering a form of
the latter TEQNHXEI when I first read the Agamemnon of Aeschylus).
-- 

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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