[B-Greek] APARCH in 1 Cor 15.20
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun Aug 22 06:49:34 EDT 2004
I'm not going to comment at length upon this, but I think that your careful
research and your "tentative" conclusion is right; that's what I'd tried to
suggest in my first response to your inquiry a week ago, that APARCH in 1
Cor 15;20 is really to be understood adverbially with the predicate and not
simply as an appositive or substitutionary equivalent to the subject.
"Predicate nominative" as a term seems to be reserved for essentially
equative nouns or adjectives linked by a copula or equivalent type of verb
(e.g. KALEITAI) to the subject, but APARCH in 1 Cor 15:20 must clearly be
associated syntactically with the verb, and I really think your analysis is
right on target.
At 12:21 AM -0500 8/22/04, Steven Lo Vullo wrote:
>On Aug 16, 2004, at 5:20 AM, Mitch Larramore wrote:
>
>> Since the
>>> statement is meant to
>>>> *assert* that Christ has indeed been raised from
>>> the dead, why an
>>>> appositive that *assumes* that? Rather, the idea
>>> seems to be, "But now,
>>>> Christ has been raised from the dead *as*
>>> firstfruits of those who have
>>>> fallen asleep."
>>
>> To me, what you are arguing is the same and your
>> translation becomes
>>
>> But now, Christ has been raised from the dead,
>> [Christ] *as* firstfruits of those who have fallen
>> asleep."
>>
>> Either way you've put it in apposition in English.
>
>Thanks for responding, Mitch.
>
>I'm not really striving to determine the best English translation, but
>to understand what is going on in the Greek. I'm using English to try
>to convey the distinction I think exists in the Greek between simple
>apposition and what I see in 1 Cor 15.20. Typically one is taught to
>express simple apposition in Greek with the English words "that is" or
>with a comma between the two words or with the appositive directly
>following the word to which it is in apposition. I was using the
>English word "as" to try to distinguish what I think is happening in
>the Greek from the idea of simple apposition.
>
>1 Cor 15.20 NUNI DE CRISTOS EGHGERTAI EK NEKRWN APARCH TWN KEKOIMHMENWN.
>
>I didn't want to comment any further on this until I had had a chance
>to think more carefully about it. But now that I have, I am somewhat
>more sure that what we have in 1 Cor 15.20 is not a simple appositional
>construction. And it is a construction that I do not remember reading
>about in any of the grammars I have studied. Allow me to make a few
>points that I think are relevant.
>
>(1) There is a similar, though not exact, example in 1 Cor 15 of what I
>am talking about, likewise involving the verb EGEIRW, but this time
>with a noun and an adjective rather than with two nouns.
>
>1 Cor 15.52 SALPISEI GAR KAI hOI NEKROI EGERQHSONTAI AFQARTOI KAI
>hHMEIS ALLAGHSOMEQA.
>
>What are the possibilities for AFQARTOI? It *could* function simply as
>an adjectival modifier of NEKROI. But the idea doesn't seem to be that
>the imperishable dead will be raised, as would be the case if we took
>AFQARTOI as an adjective modifying NEKROI. Rather, the idea seems to be
>that the dead will be raised imperishable, i.e., the imperishability
>follows on and is the consequence of being raised. This seems to
>correspond to v. 20, where the idea does not seem to be that Christ the
>firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep has been raised from the
>dead, but that he has been raised from the dead as the firstfruits of
>those who have fallen asleep, i.e., becoming the firstfruits of those
>who have fallen asleep follows on and is the consequence of being
>raised from the dead.
>
>(2) This same phenomenon *may* be in play in 1 Cor 15.44. But this
>depends on whether the subjects of the verbs are understood to be
>implied pronouns or whether SWMA YUCIKON and SWMA PNEUMATIKON are
>indeed the subjects of SPEIRETAI and EGEIRETAI. Grammatically it is
>possible to take these words as the explicit subjects, but logically it
>makes better sense to understand implied pronouns as the subjects. The
>idea does not seem to be that a natural body is sown and that a
>spiritual body is raised, but that the body is sown *as* a natural body
>and it is raised *as* a spiritual body, i.e., a natural body is the
>consequence of birth (or of creation as in the case of Adam, v. 45) and
>a spiritual body is the consequence of resurrection.
>
>(3) In my first post in this thread I mentioned that this construction
>(CRISTOS EGHGERTAI ... APARCH) reminded me somewhat of an
>object-complement construction, except that here we have nominatives
>with a passive verb. Later on it occurred to me that I should conduct a
>search to discover whether active forms of EGEIRW may indeed take the
>double accusative object-complement construction. It seems it may. Note
>Is 45.13 (LXX):
>
>EGW HGEIRA AUTON META DIKAIOSUNHS BASILEA...
>I raised him up with righteousness as king
>
>Though this was the only example I found, I think it is a clear one.
>This led me to the following hypothesis: In certain situations, when a
>verb that may take the object-complement construction in the active
>voice is used in the passive voice, the words that would be in the in
>the accusative case in the object-complement construction with the
>active verb may be converted to the nominative case to facilitate a
>similar semantic force with a passive verb. In the case of 1 Cor 15.20,
>the active voice verb with the object-complement construction would be
>something like [QEOS] EGHGERKA CRISTON EK NEKRWN APARCHN TWN
>KEKOIMHMENWN. In the passive this converts to CRISTOS EGHGERTAI EK
>NEKRWN APARCH TWN KEKOIMHMENWN. I think we could make the same case for
>1 Cor 15.52, since the object-complement construction may involve a
>noun-adjective combination.
>
>I'm not sure yet whether this is a valid observation, and I haven't yet
>concocted a nifty category for this construction if it is. I'm going to
>keep my eyes open as I read to see if there are other examples that may
>lend credence to this hypothesis. Perhaps I have stumbled onto
>something. Or perhaps I'm just being too rigorous in my analysis.
>Comments would be appreciated.
>============
>
>Steven Lo Vullo
>Madison, WI
>
>---
>B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
>B-Greek mailing list
>B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
>http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
--
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