[B-Greek] Acts 2:38 passive imperative

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Aug 17 11:49:52 EDT 2004


At 10:20 AM -0500 8/17/04, Herb Torres wrote:
>I am having trouble conceptualizing this imperative passive verb in Acts
>2:38. How can a command be directed toward something being done to
>oneself. I am speaking of "be baptized". If it is in the imperative
>mood, this suggest that something is to be done yet if it is a passive
>verb it suggest that something is done to the subject. It seems contrary
>how can a subject both do and have done to themself the same thing? I
>mean how can a person follow the command to be baptized passively? I
>simply do not understand an imperative passive verb.

The relevant words are BAPTISQHTW hEKASTOS hUMWN

One of the notions I've attempted to inject into the discussion of the QH
"passive" forms is that (even for active verbs such as BAPTIZW) we should
understand those -QH- aorists and futures as MIDDLE-PASSIVE rather than
just passive. The above 3rd-person imperative could be conveyed simply as
"each of you should be baptized" and you could call it truly passive, but
if you understand it as "each of you should get baptized" you really do
have a verb suggesting that, although the ritual of baptism may be
performed by another, it is the will and determination of the person
undergoing baptism that is at least as important as the ritual performed by
the agent. The MIDDLE force of these -QH- forms finds pretty satisfactory
expression in the English of our period by using "get" as an auxiliary and
the English passive participle as the complement of a periphrastic
construction.
-- 

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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