[B-Greek] Matt 15:37: a strange structure?

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Jun 28 06:24:47 EDT 2004


At 10:40 AM +0900 6/28/04, moon at mail.sogang.ac.kr wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I have looked at the sentence of Matt 15:37b, and am puzzled about it.
>
>TO PERISSEUON TWN KLASMATWN HRAN hHPTA SPURIDAS PLHREIS.
>the left-over  of  pieces   took  seven  baskets  full
>
>PLHREIS is  accusative plural, and seems to describe TO PERISSEUON, which is
>also accusative, though the latter is singular. hHPTA SPURIDAS seems to
>construe with PLHREIS, and complement it. So, I would think that hHPTA
>SPURIDAS
>is "accusative of respect", and would be translated as "in seven baskets".

No, I think that we have an instance of a plural concrete expression (hEPTA
SPURIDAS PLHREIS) functioning in apposition to a singular abstract
expression (TO PERISSEUON TWN KLASMATWN) functioning as direct object of
the verb HRAN.

>Then, it can be taken to mean:
>
>They took the left-over of (food) pieces (whose amount turned out) full in
>seven baskets.
>
>But I wonder if hHPTA SPURIDAS PLHREIS should be taken to simply mean
>"full seven baskets". Then we would have:
>
>They took the left-over of pieces full-seven-basket.

Moon, I don't really think there's a problem here at all: hEPTA (not hHPTA)
SPURIDAS PLHREIS should be seen as in apposition to TO PERISSEUON TWN
KLASMATWN: "they collected the remainder of the crumbs--seven full baskets
(of the crumbs)."
-- 

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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