[B-Greek] 1 Peter 1:15

craig newsgroupstuff at swiftdsl.com.au
Fri Dec 31 22:01:55 EST 2004


> >> Why do you think Peter changes from GENESQE in 1:16 LXX quote
> >> to GENHQHTE in
> >> 1:15?
> >> 
> >> Is it evidence that they mean the same thing, or is he making a 
> >> subtle distinction (if so, what)?
> >
> >Further, any comments about LXX related verses in Leviticus actually 
> >using ESESQE (future) and not GENESQE? (I notice there may 
> be a variant 
> >of 1 Peter 1:16 with ESESQE, but my apparatus isn't that great...)
> 
> NA27 has hAGIOI GENHQHTE in 1:15, hAGIOI ESESQE in 1:16; 
> Textus Receptus has hAGIOI GENHQHTE in 1:15, hAGIOI GENESQE 
> in 1:16; Majority Text has hAGIOI GENHQHTE in 1:15, hAGIOI 
> GINESQE (present imperative) in 1:16. The future indicative 
> in the Greek is common in translation of 1 and 2 plural 
> commandments; my guess is that TR's aorist imperative and 
> MT's present imperative display the verbs of the Lev. 
> assimilated to the verb GENHQHTE of 1:15. This is hardly 
> evidence for any distinction of meaning between middle and 
> passive morphoparadigms of the verb GINOMAI. If you do a 
> search of forms of GINOMAI you'll find there are 492 aorist 
> forms of the verb in the GNT, 447 with "middle"
> (MAI/SAI/TAI;MHN/SO/TO) inflection, 45 with the -QH- form. 
> The forms are concurrent and both may be found in several NT 
> documents (e.g., in 1 Peter there are 3 aorist "passive" 
> forms in -QH-,1 aorist "middle" form; in 2 Peter there is 1 
> aorist "passive" form in -QH-, 3 aorist "middle" forms) but 
> one will have difficulty drawing a clear semantic distinction 
> between the different morphoparadigms.
> 
> 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/


Thanks for the response. I wasn't trying to imply there must be a universal
distinction between GENHQHTE and GENESQE, only that it seemed very curious
(at least to me!) that in this particular instance Peter should use the two
different words in such close proximity and with such a tight relationship,
but have the same meaning. However, I suppose if GENHQHTE was becoming the
more contemporary usage, he might use that for his own words, but remain
with the original for the quotation. (Whatever word he originally used in
quotation it seems to not have been GENHQHTE. I guess there are secondary
questions as to which he originally picked, and what was in the OT text he
worked from, but in any case he still seems to use a different word in
1:15.)

Anyhow, I still find it intriguing, but maybe that's just me. Wondering if
in this particular instance Peter wanted to highlight or emphasise something
by using the different forms. But for all I know, maybe that often happens
when NT authors interact with OT words...?

Craig Johnson
Brisbane, Australia 




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