[B-Greek] Luke 19:13
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Sep 10 08:25:55 EDT 2004
At 10:33 AM +0100 9/10/04, D Jongkind wrote:
>Steven Lo Vullo wrote:
>
>> It had to do with a variant of PRAGMATEUSASQE, namely PRAGMATEUSASQAI,
>> which, because of its ending, Wieland took for an infinitive. When he
>> asked if PRAGMATEUSASQAI (which he took as an infinitive) in indirect
>> discourse was "consistent with ERCOMAI," he was wondering whether the
>> PERSON of ERCOMAI (first person) was consistent with PRAGMATEUSASQAI
>> in the indirect discourse we would have if indeed PRAGMATEUSASQAI is
>> taken as an infinitive. From what I know about indirect discourse,
>> ERCOMAI would normally have been used in the third person in this
>> instance if indeed PRAGMATEUSASQAI is taken as an infinitive.
>
>I agree that /normally/ one would expect the third person in the whole
>infinitive construction, but I am not sure whether this is necessarily
>the case. Compare Acts 1:4
>
>PARHGGEILEN ... PERIMENEIN THN EPAGGELIAN TOU PATROS HN HKOUSATE MOU.
>
>I think that this is a good parallel to Wieland's version of Luke 19:13
>with the infinitive PRAGMATEUSASQAI: indirect discourse with a return to
>the second and first person singular in the relative clause.
>Therefore I think that PRAGMATEUSASQAI can be genuine textual variant in
>its own right (as the editors of NA27 apparently thought as well).
>Perhaps the return to the first person in the following construction is
>not common, but I don't think it is unparalleled.
Thank you, Dirk, for calling attention to this undisputable parallel to the
construction we/I have been disputing in Lk 19:13. That text in Acts 1:4 is
one which I've read many times but, as happens (to me, at least) perhaps
more often than we will readily admit, I never thought through the
implications of the phrasing.
PARHGGEILENT AUTOIS APO IEROSOLUMWN MH CWRIZESQAI ALLA PERIMENEIN THN
EPAGGELIAN TOU PATROS hHN HKOUSATE MOU.
I suppose we'd English that idiomatically as something like, "urged them
not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for "my Father's promised endowment--the
one I told you about." We do this mixing of indirect and direct speech
often enough in speech, less often and less comfortably in written
narrative. What I'm guessing is that colloquial Koine Greek--and even a
Greek style that Luke may have felt more comfortable with--perhaps--than
editors of the GNT. So it is by no means unthinkable that PRAGMATEUSASQAI
might conceivably be what Luke originally wrote, and not just a scribal
spelling error for the second plural aorist middle imperative. I say "might
conceivably be," for I wouldn't attempt to resolve the text-critical
question on this basis alone. BUT: if this parallel is as valid as it
appears to be, then perhaps we aren't making sufficient allowance for
variations from what we deem to be "normal" patterns of discourse such as
concinnity of direct- or indirect-discourse formats. In some BG threads of
the recent and not-so-recent past I've been faulted (rightly so) for
suggesting that Paul or Luke "SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN it THUS," the assumption
being that Paul's or Luke's school grammar wouldn't have allowed him to
formulate the text as the GNT displays it to our eyes.
And another point on which I'm less confident than I might once have been:
At 8:11 AM +0200 9/9/04, Wieland Willker wrote:
>Steven Lo Vullo wrote:
>> Yes, that would certainly seem to lend weight to your
>> suggestion. And it also answers Wieland's question about
>> whether an infinitive in indirect speech here would be consistent
>> with the first person ERCOMAI. I don't think it would.
>
>It is interesting and also adds weight to a simple spelling variation
>that no one changed ERCOMAI.
>Additionally it could be noted that in Lk EIPEN PROS AUTOUS always
>introduces direct speech.
I wonder if this last remark of Wieland's is really valid; my guess is that
in the Koine PROS AUTOUS is slowly but surely supplanting AUTOIS as the
standard complement of verbs of speaking and commanding. I mistrust that
adverb "always" in Wieland's formulation, "in Lk EIPEN PROS AUTOUS always
introduces direct speech." It's true that the verb in Acts 1;4 is
PARAGGELLW rather than LEGW used in the sense of PARAGGELLW--but it seems
to me that the construction in Acts 1:4 is every bit as disturbing to a
"schoolboy" sense of "good Greek grammar" as the construction of the
variant in Lk 19:13 ... EIPEN PROS AUTOUS PRAGMATEUSASQAI EN hWi ERCOMAI.
The upshot of this reflection, so far as I am concerned, is not that the
variant with the infinitive in Lk 19:13 MUST be what Luke actually wrote,
but rather than our confidence regarding what Luke COULD or MIGHT have
written originally may rest on shaky grounds.
--
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/
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