[B-Greek] Matt. 13:6 and voice

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Feb 11 07:11:56 EST 2004


At 8:25 PM -0300 2/10/04, John Colby wrote:
>Matthew 13:6 reads:
>
>hHLIOU DE ANATEILANTOS EKAUMATISQH KAI DIA TO MH ECEIN hRIZAN EXHRANQH.
>
>A normal translation (NASB, ESV) would go somethings like this, "After the
>sun rose they [the seeds that sprouted] were scorched and because they did
>not have root they became dried."
>
>(These third person, singular, aorist, "passive" verbs are translated as
>plural because the "seeds" are neuter plural). But after the discussions
>about the QH conjunction, I thought twice about this. What would stop this
>from being translated:
>
>"And after the sun rose, it scorched (the plants) and because they did
>have root, the sun withered (the plants)."? I am guessing that the second
>translation is inferior because of the context and the genitive absolute
>(hHLIOU DE ANATEILANTOS). Wondering what you think.

I've seen the response of John Adams (but not of John Quincy Adams!) on
this one. As for the QH forms, I don't see any reason to take EKAUMATISQH
and EXHRANQH as passive in meaning at all and therefore to convert them
into actives with the sun as the subject. Rather these forms (EKAUMATISQH
and EXHRANQH) should be understood as intransitive in the Greek and
translated as such in English. I guess my own version would be reasonably
close to what's traditional: "but when the sun came up, they got scorched
and withered because they had no roots." "got scorched" is probably the
best (American) English for EKAUMATISQH which hovers between the passive of
the victim and the middle of the involuntary experiencer.
-- 

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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