[B-Greek] PLHRHS
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Apr 30 08:25:23 EDT 2004
At 2:20 PM +0300 4/30/04, Iver Larsen wrote:
>Carl said some time ago:
>> John 1:14 KAI hO
>> LOGOS SARX EGENETO KAI ESKHNWSEN EN hHMIN, KAI EQEASAMEQA THN DOXAN AUTOU,
>> DOXAN hWS MONOGENOUS PARA PATROS, PLHRHS CARITOS KAI ALHQEIAS. If that
>> nominative adjective PLHRHS is rightly transmitted in the manuscripts, it
>> can only agree with hO LOGOS, the original subject of the verse and mean
>> "dwelt among as one full of grace and truth." But it's not usually
>> translated to make any such meaning clear and I have the impression (I've
>> never seen it commented on) that it is understood as parallel to the
>> genitives AUTOU ... MONOGENOUS, i.e. as if it were a genitive PLHROUS--and
>> it's viewed as a grammatical anacoluthon. It's really a very strange
>> grammatical collocation.
>
>It appears that the masculine and feminine forms are the same for this
>adjective, and we seem to have an accusative PLHRHS in
>Acts 6:5 KAI EXELEXANTO STEFANON, ANDRA PLHRHS PISTEWS...
The only way to understand PLHRHS as accusative here is to see it as
indeclinable. Here is Metzger's note: "The indeclinable form PLHRHS read by
Aleph A C D E H P and many minuscules, was corrected in B and several
minuscules to PLHRH a reading that passed into the Textus Receptus."
>The accusative in 2 John 1:8 is PLHRH, but in Mark 4:28 both PLHRH and
>PLHRHS are well attested. Is this an example of the language in flux or
>PLHRHS just a special case? BAGD says that "In some of the passages already
>mentioned PLHRHS is indecl."
>
>Could PLHRHS in John 1:14 possibly be an accusative (feminine), and
>therefore relate to DOXAN?
Hardly! Even if we should understand PLHRHS as a 2-termination adjective
(PLHRHS mf/PLHRES n), it would have to be PLHRH in the acc. sg. fem. As
noted above, the only way to understand it as construing with DOXAN is as
an INDECLINABALE adjective. And perhaps that's what it is, as the evidence
offered in BDAG seems to indicate, but I must say, it surely seems "passing
strange" to me--very idiomatic, perhaps like American English colloquial
idioms, "the whole nine yards" or "lock, stock, and barrel."
BDAG has a note which I hesitate to cite in full, but it seems to me important:
s.v. PLHRHS 2: "In some of the passages already mentioned PLHRHS is
indecl., though never without v.l., and almost only when it is used w. a
gen., corresponding to an Engl. expression such as 'a work full of errors':
THN ... DOXAN AUTOU ... PLHRHS (referring to AUTOU) CARITOS KAI ALHQEIAS J
1:14 (cp. CTurner, JTS 1, 1900, 120ff; 561f). ANDRA PLHRHS PISTEWS Ac 6:5
(v.l. PLHRH). It is found as an itacistic v.l. in Mk 8:19; Ac 6:3, 5;
19:28, and without a gen. 2J 8 v.l. (s. N.25 app.). Examples of this use of
PLHRHS w. the gen. are found fr. the second century BC, and fr. the first
century AD on it is frequently found in colloq. H.Gk.: PLeid C II, 14 (160
BC). Wooden tablet fr. Egypt fr. the time of Augustus in RevArch 29, 1875,
233f=Sb 3553, 7; BGU 707, 15; POxy 237 IV, 14 (all three II AD);
Mitt-Wilck. I/2, 499, 9 (II/III AD); En 21:7. S. the exx. in Crönert 179, 4
and also s. Mayser 63f (w. lit.); 297; Dssm., LO 99f (LAE 125ff); Thackeray
176f; Reinhold 53; Borger, GGA 139 (lit.); B-D-F §137, 1; Mlt. 50; Rob.
275f.-B. 931. Frisk. M-M. TW."
--
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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