[B-Greek] Gal 2.4: ellipsis or anacoluthon?

Steven Lo Vullo themelios at charter.net
Sun Nov 28 18:53:48 EST 2004


On Nov 28, 2004, at 3:49 PM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:

>> 3 ALL' OUDE TITOS hO SUN EMOI, hELLHN WN, HNAGKASQH PERITMHQHNAI; 4 
>> DIA
>> DE TOUS PAREISAKTOUS YEUDADELFOUS, hOITINES PAREISHLQON KATASKOPHSAI
>> THN ELEUQERIAN hHMWN hHN ECOMEN EN CRISTWi IHSOU, hINA hHMAS
>> KATADOULWSOUSIN, 5 hOIS OUDE PROS hWRAN EIXAMEN THi hUPOTAGHi, hINA hH
>> ALHQEIA TOU EUAGGELIOU DIAMEINHi PROS hUMAS.
>

> FWIW, I think it's an anacoluthon. I rather doubt even that the NET
> understood this as an ellipsis; I think rather that they inserted 
> phrasing
> to indicate what they think that Paul surely meant--and that seems to 
> me
> what the "translator's note" actually means: "No subject and verb are
> expressed in vv. 4-5, but the phrase "Now this matter arose," implied 
> from
> v. 3, was supplied to make a complete English sentence." And I would 
> agree
> with that, i.e. I think that this is what Paul as writer/dictator of 
> the
> letter intended to say, but I think that Galatians is a later written 
> in a
> white heat of passion (that's an exaggeration, I guess) and leaving an
> awful lot, especially in chapter 2, to be read between the lines as
> something that writer and auditors among the Galatians readily 
> understood,
> although we modern readers can't be quite sure about it. So I don't 
> think
> it's an ellipsis, which term would seem to imply that this phrasing was
> DELIBERATELY omitted, rather I think it's an anacoluthon resulting from
> hasty composition and no proofreading of a dictation that the 
> amanuensis
> may have had difficulty enough getting down. When I look back at some 
> of
> the messages I've sent to this list, I sometimes wonder how I could 
> have
> let that go without doing a better job--or any job--of reading what I 
> wrote
> before hitting the "send" button.

Thanks, Carl.

On the one hand, I'm not so sure that the translation in the NET Bible 
(and others) doesn't reflect the translator's understanding that the 
Greek is elliptical. It seems to me that the note quoted above could 
easily be taken to indicate just that. On the other hand, your points 
about Paul's state of mind and hasty composition are well taken.
============

Steven Lo Vullo
Madison, WI




More information about the B-Greek mailing list