[B-Greek] PLHRHS
Iver Larsen
iver_larsen at sil.org
Sun May 2 02:59:24 EDT 2004
I'd like to thank those who by their answers have helped me to clarify my
thinking in spite of my unclear question.
Let me comment below:
<snip>
>Acts 6:5 KAI EXELEXANTO STEFANON, ANDRA PLHRHS PISTEWS...
> [Carl:] The only way to understand PLHRHS as accusative here is to see it
as
> indeclinable. Here is Metzger's note: "The indeclinable form
> PLHRHS read by
> Aleph A C D E H P and many minuscules, was corrected in B and several
> minuscules to PLHRH a reading that passed into the Textus Receptus."
Yes, if we understand "corrected" to mean altering the text to what B
thought was better.
In Acts 6:5 the original text had PLHRHS in a context which calls for a
masc. accusative (PLHRH)
Curiously, in Mark 4:28 the context calls for masc. acc. and the original
text seems to have had PLHRH, based on considerable manuscript support,
whereas a few mss have "corrected" to PLHRHS, and B even to PLHRES. B seems
rather confused about this word.
> [Carl:] BDAG has a note which I hesitate to cite in full, but it seems to
> me important:
>
> s.v. PLHRHS 2: "In some of the passages already mentioned PLHRHS is
> indecl., though never without v.l., and almost only when it is used w. a
> gen., corresponding to an Engl. expression such as 'a work full
> of errors':
> THN ... DOXAN AUTOU ... PLHRHS (referring to AUTOU) CARITOS KAI ALHQEIAS J
> 1:14 (cp. CTurner, JTS 1, 1900, 120ff; 561f). ANDRA PLHRHS PISTEWS Ac 6:5
> (v.l. PLHRH). It is found as an itacistic v.l. in Mk 8:19; Ac 6:3, 5;
> 19:28, and without a gen. 2J 8 v.l. (s. N.25 app.). Examples of
> this use of PLHRHS w. the gen. are found fr. the second century BC, and
fr. the first
> century AD on it is frequently found in colloq. H.Gk.
I see no reason why PLHRHS should refer to AUTOU rather than DOXAN. Normally
such an apposition would refer to the head of the noun phrase, not one of
its constituents. And it is not particularly helpful to talk about "some of
the passages" and "almost only".
My hypothesis is that it would be worthwhile to separate two different
usages of PLHRHS.
Type 1 is a common attributive adjective like in "a full basket" where the
adjective is a constituent in a noun phrase.
Type 2 is either appositional or predicative as in "A woman, full of
courage" or "The basket is full of...". Type 2 corresponds to the above
statement "when used with a genitive..."
I investigated the 16 occurrences in the GNT. 5 are in plural - PLHREIS.
>From context one could be termed nominative and the other four accusative,
common gender (m/f). There are three of type 1 and two of type 2.
11 are in singular. Let me leave John 1:14 aside for the moment. Of the
other 10, 8 are of type 2 and use the indeclinable form PLHRHS, whether the
context calls for nominative, vocative or accusative, masculine or feminine
forms. Two are of type 1, namely Mk 4:28 and 2 Jn 1:8. Both of these are in
the accusative and have PLHRH in the best manuscripts (also the vast
majority of mss).
So my hypothesis is that in the Greek of the NT, type 2 uses the
indeclinable form, type 1 uses the declinable form. If anyone has the time
and resources to test the hypothesis from a corpus of papyrus texts, I'd be
grateful to hear the results. It does not hold for the Greek language as
used in the LXX, since LXX uses the declinable form with the genitive
(consistent with the note above from BDAG).
I would expect that the declinable forms would slowly give way to the
indeclinable ones as hinted at in BDAG, but there may well be dialectal
differences, too. That was the reason for my "in flux" question.
Since John 1:14 is of type 2, I would expect the indeclinable form here, and
I would then go with Robertson (thanks Mitch) and link it with DOXAN, since
this seems to me to fit the Greek text best.
Iver Larsen
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