[B-Greek] Jn. 8:40

gfsomsel at juno.com gfsomsel at juno.com
Tue Nov 23 14:40:54 EST 2004


On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:03:42 -0500 "Carl W. Conrad"
<cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu> writes:
> At 1:53 PM -0500 11/23/04, gfsomsel at juno.com wrote:
> >
> >Yes, but he is concerned with the problem of having (if I may
> >overliteralize the translation)
> >
> >"Now you seek to kill me, a man who ** I told you the truth ** "
> >
> >where the 3 s is transformed into 1 s.  Your example seems 
> somewhat
> >different in that the "me", while 1 s. functions as the object and 
> is
> >continued by the 3 s.
> 
> NUN DE ZHTEITE ME APOKTEINAI ANQRWPON hOS THN ALHQEIAN hUMIN 
> LELALHKA hHN
> HKOUSA PARA TOU QEOU . . .
> 
> What actually are you saying, George? that ANQRWPON is third 
> singular and
> is the real antecedent of hOS? I'd understand ANQRWPON as 
> appositional to
> ME and I'd still understand ME as the antecedent of hOS and the 
> factor
> accounting for the first-person verb LALHKA (as well as HKOUSA). Was 
> it
> some other "person" (ANQRWPOS) hOS LELALHKEN and HKOUSEN? No, I was 
> the
> ANQRWPOS, and it was I who LELALHKA and HKOUSA.
> 
> You're well aware that you're "overliteralizing" the translation: 
> there is
> no EGW as subject of these first-singular verbs; the subject is hOS, 
> and
> hOS is NOT distinctively third-person in reference even if it 
> functions
> with third-person verbs in by far the majority of cases.
> 
> I must say, I'm glad we're talking about Greek, even if it could be
> questioned whether we're "saying" anything.
> -- 
> 
> 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/
___________

Of course there is no EGW in this passage.  Every schoolboy knows,
however, that the person is contained in the verb in Greek [LELAKHKA --
"I spoke"].  I think it tends to be a problem with the difference between
the way the Greek in this passage handles it and the way in which we
would normally handle it in English.  In English we would not say "I am a
man who [I] spoke the truth" but rather "I am a man who spoke the truth."
 The tendency is to view "who spoke the truth" as 3 s. (whether or not
that is inherently true though I tend to think that was how we construed
it when I was in school).  

george
gfsomsel



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