[B-Greek] Questions on Gal 2:17 - AUTOI
Harold R. Holmyard III
hholmyard at ont.com
Wed Oct 20 11:34:44 EDT 2004
Dear Remington,
> >>Gal 2:17 . . . EUREQHMEN KAI AUTOI AMARTWLOI, . .
>>>Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm thinking that the AUTOI
>>>AMARTWLOI functions as a predicate nominative with the 1st person (we)
>>>subject of the verb, and AUTOI functions as an intensifier, to read
>>>something like "even we are found to be sinners." but to be honest, I am
>>>somewhat confused by this structure. Anyone willing to shed some light
>>>on it? Why is it AUTOI and not HMEIS? (i.e. 3rd and not 1st) or is it
>>>ust to match the case/gender of AMARTWLOI??
>
>>Yes, that's right. The first meaning of AUTOS is, according to BAGD, "self: >
>intensive, setting the individual off from everything else, and contrasting;
>used in all >persons, genders, and numbers." So here one could say, "lest we
>be found, also >ourselves, sinners."
>>Yours,
>>Harold Holmyard
>
>Dear Harold,
>The use of AUTOI, in the sense presented here, has come up on the list
>previously.
>But first, you are presenting EUREQHMEN, which is, indicative, aorist,
>passive [with the sibilant elided for euphony], in a subjunctive
>sense with your
>addition of 'lest.'
HH: You are right, thanks. I don't know where "lest" came from. I
should not have put a "lest" there. Kelly did not give the whole
sentence, so I was just imagining how the verb started. I should have
checked.
>In this instance AUTOI is adverbial and intensive; qualifying, modifying,
>AMARTWLOI. Synonymous with very; truly; really; in a high degree; to a great
>extent; extremely; exceedingly.
>
>CRISTOS IHSOUS HLQEN EIS TON KOSMON AMARTWLOUS SWSAI, WN PRWTOS EIMI EGW
HH: I don't know in what lexicon you found the definition that you
cite, but it does not correspond with the lexicons I have (BAGD,
LSJ). AUTOS can mean "very," but in the sense of "the same." It does
not seem to have the idea of "to a great extent." You may be
supposing that from the latitude of meaning of the English word
"very." An example of the way AUTOS means "very" would be in a
sentence like: "He is the very man I was just talking about."
Yours,
Harold Holmyard
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