[B-Greek] Acts 23,34
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Apr 12 19:44:44 EDT 2004
At 4:04 PM -0700 4/12/04, Eddie Mishoe wrote:
>ANAGNOUS DE KAI EPERWTHSAS EK POIAS EPARCEIAS ESTIN
>KAI PUQOMENOS hOTI APO KILIKIAS,
>
>Trying to understand when and when not to take a
>passage as "indirect discourse" is harder than I had
>thought.
>
>hOTI here does not indicate "indirect discourse" per
>Culy/Parsons. Translating this final part:
>
>and discovered that (he was) from Cilicia,
>
>But he had just asked (EPERWTHSAS) his subordinates,
>"What province is he from?" I would have thought
>someone answered, "he is from Cilicia." And that would
>become APO KILIKIAS in indirect discourse, or so I
>would think. Why is this not indirect discourse?
Eddie, I've read the note in Culy/Parsons and I'm every bit as much at a
loss to know why they claim we don't have an indirect question EK POIAS
EPARCEIAS ESTIN as object of EPERWTHSAS and an indirect statement
introduced by hOTI in APO KILIKIAS (ESTIN) as object of PUQOMENOS. I can
only surmise that it's a matter of how they choose to define "indirect
question" and "indirect discourse" as if any clause that has an indicative
verb rather than an optative or an infinitive can only be called "direct
discourse." This seems rather arbitrary to me; cf. Wallace GGBB, pp. 537-8;
Wallace lumps the indirect question (a term that he does not use) together
with "indirect discourse"--perhaps with some justification inasmuch as the
usage is pretty much the same in Koine whereas Classical Attic tended to
use an optative of the verb in indirect questions rather than an
indicative. While I could see some justification for taking EK POIAS
EPARCEIAS ESTIN as the ipsissima verba of the question ("What province is
he from?"), I have more difficulty understanding why PUQOMENOS hOTI EK
KILIKIAS should quite carry the sense "upon being told, 'from Cilicia'."
PUNQANOMAI is found 12x in the GNT in either of two senses: "seek to learn
something from someone" or "ascertain (a fact) by questioning." Several
times it is used with an optative of indirect question, but sometimes with
an indicative (e.g. Mt 2:4, Acts 10:18); I do find two instances in Acts
where it does seem to be used in the sense of "put the question" and is
followed by a direct formulation of the question: Acts 4:27 and 23:19.
--
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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