[B-Greek] Women or Wives in Acts 21:5

Joseph Weaks j.weaks at tcu.edu
Wed Sep 22 14:39:04 EDT 2004


On Sep 22, 2004, at 1:13 PM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:

> At 12:53 PM -0400 9/22/04, Mark Wutka wrote:
>> I was wondering about this portion of Acts 21:5
>>   PANTWN SUN GUNAIXI KAI TEKNOIS
>>
>> Most of the translations I have seen translate this as something like:
>> "All of them, with their wives and children"
>> ...It's really the "their" in the translations that I am wondering 
>> about.
>> Is there something here that indicates possession?  ...
> ...You'll find that often enough the article used with a noun
> in the right context implies a "his/her/their" possessive aspect).

This is one thing that doesn't strike someone who studied Classical 
Greek first. Read Xenephon and the like and this is par for the course.
"The man put the hand in the water."   = his hand, of course

I would reiterate that also in the GNT there is *often* the assumption 
of what we call a possessive.

My 2¢,
Joe Weaks

**************************************************************
Rev. Joseph A. Weaks
Senior Minister, Bethany Christian Church, Dallas
Ph.D. (Cand.), Brite Divinity School, Ft. Worth
j.weaks at tcu.edu
**************************************************************



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