[B-Greek] Acts 3:12b

Mark Lama markosl80 at yahoo.com
Tue Mar 16 15:29:34 EST 2004



Mitch Larramore <mitchlarramore at yahoo.com> wrote:

...H hHMIN TI ATENIZETE hWS IDIAi DUNAMEI H EUSEBEIAi
PEPOIHKOSIN TOU PERIPATEIN AUTON;

Why do you stare at us as if we had made this man walk
by our own power or piety? (NET Bible)

Why is this participle PEPOIHKOSIN translated like a
finite verb here? And what does this participle
modify?


=====
Mitch Larramore
Spring Branch, Texas
Student/Memorial High School

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mitch,

PEPOIHKOSIN (dat. pl. perf. act. part. of POIEW) goes with hHMIN. Subtract hWS and rearrange the word order, and it becomes a little clearer: TI ATENIZETE hHMIN PEPOIHKOSIN (TOUTO). That simplified sentence could be translated: "Why do you stare at us as we (stand here) having done this?" You have a circumstantial participle here that describes the condition of hHMIN, i.e., "having done", while hHMIN is being stared at. Now add hWS: TI ATENIZETE hHMIN hWS PEPOIHKOSIN (TOUTO). "Why do you stare at us *as (if)* (in a condition of) having done this." Now add the modifiers that I replaced by (TOUTO) and rearrange the word order so that PEPOIHKOSIN is far enough from hHMIN to get lost in the crowd, and you have the sentence in Acts. The reason that we have a finite verb "had made" in the English translation is simply that it is vastly clearer and more natural than a "translationese" version, like my gloss above, would be.

Hope this helps!

Mark Lama


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