[B-Greek] Acts 22,17;18A

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Apr 9 07:43:58 EDT 2004


At 12:10 PM +0100 4/9/04, D Jongkind wrote:
>> >EGENETO DE MOI hUPOSTREYANTI EIS IEROUSALHM KAI
>> >PROSEUCOMENOU MOU EN TWi hIERWi GENESQAI ME EN
>> >EKSTASEI, KAI IDEIN AUTON LEGONTA MOI, SPEUSON KAI
>> >EXELQE EN TACEI EX IEROUSALHM,
>
>> Older Attic Greek would have put that genitive absolute into another
>> participle in the dative thus: EGENETO DE MOI hUPOYTREYANTI EIS
>IEEROUSALHM
>> KAI PROSEUCOMENWi EN TWi hIERWi GENESQAI ME EN EKSTASEI KAI IDEIN ...
>""And
>> it happened to me when I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the
>> temple that I came to be in a trance and saw ..."
>
>I am just wondering if Attic Greek would use the construction of EGENETO
>with the dative at all, especially in situations as these when the story is
>carried forwards "And it happened ..."
>[This is a genuine question, as I really don't know].

Actually I think you're right; although Ciceronian Latin prose would use
the dative participles as I suggested (whenever I see something like this,
I recall the opening of Cicero's De Oratore: Cogitanti mihi saepe numero et
memoria vetera repetenti perbeati fuisse, Quinte frater, illi videri
solent), I think that the construction in the present passage owes more to
LXX patterns derived from Hebrew narrative idiom than to older standard
Greek. This really is a Hebraism.
-- 

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/



More information about the B-Greek mailing list