TIS and grammatical gender (Was Re: [B-Greek] 1 Timothy 5:8

Michael Holmes holmic at bethel.edu
Fri Jan 16 18:16:22 EST 2004


Re Alex's comment:
I said that "The argument has been made--and widely distributed in some
circles--that there
is an essential "male component of meaning" associated with certain words
..." I did not say that I agree with it--and I do not: that view, I think,
is a case of "the tail wagging the dog." Alex's example I find very
illuminating, and his point--"I would say that context and a knowledge of
idiomatic convention must trump our reading of grammatical gender, even ...
in some situations where we have TIS followed by a masculine nominative
adjective"--I fully agree with.
Michael Holmes
Bethel College


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alex Loney" <aloney at umich.edu>
To: "Michael Holmes" <holmic at bethel.edu>; "Paul Zellmer" <paul at smcfm.org>;
<b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 8:02 PM
Subject: RE: TIS and grammatical gender (Was Re: [B-Greek] 1 Timothy 5:8


> I believe that grammatical gender does *usually* coincide with the
> biological gender of the referent when the referent is a person. I would
> quibble with or merely add to a few things in Michael's post, however.
>
> The femine grammatical gender seems to me a much more emphatic marking of
> referent gender than the masculine grammatical gender for such
circumstances
> as words like ANTHRWPOS and collective nouns.
>
> Also, I was reading Euripedes Bacchae yesterday, and the openning chorus
of
> maenads (women) uses a similar construction as 1 Tim 5:8. It begins: W
> MAKAP, OSTIS EUDAIMWN TELETAS THEWN EIDWS BIOTAV AGISTEUEI... Here the
> blessed on is addressed by the exculsively male gender, even though the
> referent is female. (It goes on to describe some Bacchic rites that a good
> maenad would perform... nessecarily this "happy man" is actually female in
> context). In this case it appears that the convention of introducing a
> beatitude with OSTIS trumps the concerns of grammatical gender coinciding
> with biology. The participles (EIDWN for one) throughout also are all
> exculsively masculine. Thus, I would say that context and a knowledge of
> idiomatic convention must trump our reading of grammatical gender, even
(as
> I may differ from Michael) in some situations where we have TIS followed
by
> a masculine nominative adjective.
>
>
>
> P.S. If I wanted to be really "PC" (which I don't) I would ask if we were
> talking about gender or sex...
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Michael Holmes
> Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 1:14 PM
> To: Paul Zellmer; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: TIS and grammatical gender (Was Re: [B-Greek] 1 Timothy 5:8
>
>
> It seems to me that it is precisely "the understanding of the text" (to
> quote from PZ's comment) that is the point of concern here: how does the
> Greek language handle/deal with the matter of grammatical gender? The
> argument has been made--and widely distributed in some circles--that there
> is an essential "male component of meaning" associated with certain words
> when a grammatical masculine gender marker is associated with them, and
> further, that if a sentence that begins with a generalizing TIS later
> incorporates a masculine pronoun, then it rules backward to determine the
> gender of the TIS--which then is not a generalizing plural (sort of like
the
> tail wagging the dog, no?) The discussion during the last day or so has
> addressed, it seems to me, precisely this matter. The answer will
certainly
> affect how one translates the text, but the discussion itself is focused
on
> what the text signifies, and thus surely falls within the parameters of
the
> list, I would think. Moreover, the effort/struggle to translate is often a
> useful means to test how well we understand what the Greek says, or to
raise
> questions about how Greek "works."
>
> Moreover, the "PC" charge can cut both ways, and like many two-edged
swords,
> is perhaps best left in the closet.
> Michael Holmes
> Bethel College
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Paul Zellmer" <paul at smcfm.org>
> To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 2:52 PM
> Subject: RE: TIS and grammatical gender (Was Re: [B-Greek] 1 Timothy 5:
>
> > Since we have all basically agreed that grammatical gender does not
> require
> > the interpretation of actual gender, would it be too much to ask the
list
> to
> > leave the argument of translation with the translation list?  Whether or
> not
> > the current interpretation "by many if not most" stated below is
accurate
> > (and that accuracy, BTW, is very much in question across the board), the
> > English interpretation does not seem to have any real influence on most
of
> > the responders' understanding of the Greek text.
> >
> > I left the translation list to stop having to cut through these PC
> arguments
> > that added little or nothing to the understanding of the text.  Please,
> can
> > we take it there if it is really important to us?
> >
> > Paul Zellmer
> > Orangeburg, SC
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
> > > [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Kathleen
Creager
> > > Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 12:20 PM
> > > To: Polycarp66 at aol.com; eluchil404 at yahoo.com;
b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> > > Subject: Re: TIS and grammatical gender (Was Re: [B-Greek] 1 Timothy
5:8
> > >
> > >
> > > Maybe it's just me, but it seems to me that today's contributions to
> this
> > > thread have all substantially agreed with each other, i.e. that
> masculine
> > > grammatical gender does not necessarily imply masculine nature,
> > > but somehow
> > > are being read as disagreements.
> > >
> > > > In a message dated 1/16/2004 11:33:21 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> > > > eluchil404 at yahoo.com writes:
> > > > >The phrasing "Let he who speaks keep quiet in
> > > > > church and speak to himself and God" which Grudem
> > > > > evidently prefers is only accurate where he/him is the
> > > > > the singular pronoun of indefinate gender.  IF such an
> > > > > interpretation is not availible than that translation
> > > > > is not accurate.
> > >
> > > My understanding of Cirk Bejnar's point above (Cirk, obviously, please
> > > correct me if I'm wrong):
> > > is that use of the singular he/him in English, while it may have been
> > > interpreted as gender neutral by most people at some point in the
past,
> is
> > > currently interpreted by many if not most as meaning exclusively
> > > male.  And,
> > > for that reason, use of the plural in English better conveys the sense
> of
> > > the Greek.  Which, I think, agrees with Ann Nyland.  And with the many
> of
> > > you who have been discussing this today!
> > >
> > > Kathleen Creager
> > >
> > > ---
> > > 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
> > >
> >
> >
> > ---
> > 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
> >
>
> ---
> 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
>
>




More information about the B-Greek mailing list