[B-Greek] Luke 2:2 Again
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at juno.com
Wed Dec 22 01:48:54 EST 2004
On Tue, 21 Dec 2004 23:38:51 -0500 "Stephen C. Carlson"
<scarlson at mindspring.com> writes:
>
> Now that Christmas is near, I figure that it's a good
> time to take yet another look at a well-known crux,
> hopefully giving a different twist to it :--
>
> Luke 2:2 hAUTH * APOGRAFH PRWTH EGENETO hHGEMONEUONTOS
> THS SURIAS KURHNIOU (* later MSS add hH)
>
> Apart from all the historical quandries that I don't
> want to or need to get into, this verse is very
> exegetically challenging. When all is said and done,
> translations usually end up rendering this verse as:
> "This was the first registration, taken when Quirinius
> was governor of Syria." (NET)
>
> The difficulties in Luke 2:2 have led to a number of
> proposals, but many are worse than the text they are
> trying to interpret. In particular, I disagree with
> the attempt to read PRWTH as a comparative ("before"
> or "earlier") followed by a genitive of comparison to
> get something like "before Quirinius was governing
> Syria" because KURHNIOU has to be the subject of a
> genitive absolute hHGEMONEUONTOS.
>
> Nevertheless, the standard interpretion still leaves me
> cold with a number of problems, the chief among them is
> why would Luke specify that it was PRWTH ("the first").
> If Luke merely wanted to tell when the registration
> happened, presumably under Quirinius (c. AD 6), there
> is little need to use PRWTH. What does that word do
> for the text? Of course, the census under Quirinius
> was hugely important. Josephus had recognized it as
> as a major factor ultimately leading to the Jewish War
> in the 60s. In fact, this census is so important that
> Luke could merely refer to it in Acts 5:37 as "the
> census" THS APOGRAFHS.
>
> Another problem for me is the rather weak rendering
> of EGENETO as "was." It seems that HN would do a better
> job. Also, it is difficult to figure out what belongs
> in the subject and what belongs in the predicate.
>
> I would suggest that Eph. 6:2 "TIMA TON PATERA SOU KAI
> THN MHTERA" hHTIS ESTIN ENTOLH PRWTH EN EPAGGALIAi is
> a very helpful syntactic and semantic analogy for Luke 2:2.
> In particular, we have a pronoun + noun + PRWTH + adv.,
> a very similar sentence structure to Luke 2:2, withthe
> chief difference is the location and root of the verb,
> ESTIN vs EGENETO.
>
> Eph. 6:2 is usually translated like "'Honor your father
> and mother' [cf. Ex 20:12], which is the first commandment
> with by a promise." (NRSV) But Danker disagrees with
> rendering PRWTH as "first" because it "loses sight of
> the fact that Ex 20:4-6=Dt 5:8-10 has an implied promise
> of the same kind as the one one in Ex 20:12=Dt5:16."
> Danker concludes that PRWTH "here is best taken in the
> same sense as in Mk 12:29 above."
>
> Mark 12:29 has POIA ESTIN ENTOLH PRWTH PANTWN, which means
> "Which commandment is greatest of all?" and definitely not
> "which commandment is chronologically first of all?" Thus,
> Eph. 6:2 should mean something like "which is the greatest
> commandment with a promise."
>
> Danker identifies two major senses for PRWTOS: (1) being
> first in sequence, time, number, or space, and (2) being
> first in prominence or importance. Many examples of the
> second sense can be found in Luke's writings, e.g. Luke
> 15:22 STOLHN THN PRWTHN "[my] best robe"; Luke 13:30
> (first vs. last); Acts 17:4 "quite a few prominent women"
> (NET); Acts 13:50 "the prominent men in the city"; Luke
> 19:47 "the prominent leaders of the people" etc.
>
> This second sense gives full force to the GINOMAI as
> "become" (experience a change in nature) and Luke loves
> using adj. + GINOMAI (e.g. Luke 23:31, Acys 1:19, 9:42,
> 12:23, 16:27, 19:17, and 26:19 [exx. from BDAG]). Thus,
> PRWTH EGENETO would mean "became most prominent"
>
> Using the sense of "most prominent" in Luke 2:2 hAUTH
> [hH] APOGRAFH PRWTH EGENETO hHGEMONEUONTOS THS SURIAS
> KURHNIOU, we get either, depending on whether APOGRAFH
> goes into the subject or the predicate:
>
> "This registration became most prominent when
> Quirinius was governing Syria." or "This [decree
> to get registered] became the/a most important
> registration when Quirinius was governing Syria."
>
> Stephen Carlson
> --
> Stephen C. Carlson
> mailto:scarlson at mindspring.com
> Weblog:
> http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/hypotyposeis/blogger.html
> "Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words." Shujing
> 2.35
_____________________
I'm sure that you would be commended for eschewing historical discussion
of the passage in accordance with b-greek protocol. There are, however,
difficulties with attempting to rely solely upon a discussion of the
linguistic aspects of a text in that it can only take you so far as to
delineate what are the POSSIBLE interpretations. I will attempt to avoid
too great a discussion of historical aspects though I fear that complete
avoidance is impossible.
As regarding your proposal that PRWTH might be understood in the sense of
"most prominent", this would avoid a discussion of whether this APOGRAFH
was temporally first but the demonstrative hAUTH which modifies APOGRAFH
does not leave any doubt that it is referring to the census which Luke
envisions as occasioning the trip to Bethlehem. If "this most prominent
census" refers to the census near the time of Jesus' birth, then we have
a problem historically since Quirinius was governor of Syria in 6/7 A.D.
whereas Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. To exclude the Quirinian census
(which is historically impossible) but to maintain its reference here it
would be necessary to understand this somewhat in the sense (not a
translation) "Augustus decreed that the whole world would be enrolled.
This most prominent census took place when Quirinius was governor of
Syria." This, however, leads one to wonder what the point was in
mentioning Quirinius at all. Furthermore, it would almost be necessary
to assume that there was a preceding census (which was not so prominent)
during which the holy family was in Bethlehem. While the understanding
of PRWTH as "most prominent" is possible as you point out in regard to
other Lukan passages, it fails to solve the basic problem.
george
gfsomsel
___________
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