[B-Greek] FQANW in Mt 12:28

Carl W.Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Sat Apr 16 10:52:24 EDT 2005


On Apr 16, 2005, at 9:54 AM, Mark wrote:

>
> Dear Dr. Conrad,
>
> In article:
>
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2000-April/010883.html
>
> You wrote, about Mt 12:28,
>
>> I have long felt that FQANW is one of the strangest verbs in the Greek
>> language, and its usage in this text seems one of the strangest usages
>> of it; I take it as something akin to: "Then the Kingdom of God has
>> arrived here before you were aware of it!"
>
> Thayer's Lexicon says about the verb FQANW that it has a meaning of
> 'prior-ity', in the sense of "to come before, to preceed," as in: "We 
> who
> are still living when the Lord returns will not rise to meet him ahead 
> of
> those who are in their graves" (1Th 4:15; NLT). But also that the 
> sense of
> 'prior-ity' is often absent, meaning simply "to come to, to arrive at; 
> to
> reach, to attain" -- or rather, following my own intuition, the sense 
> of
> 'prior-ity' is embedded in the sense of somethinhg having 'drawn near'
> (from an event set in motion in the past), as in: "But the anger of God
> has caught up with them at last" (1Th 2:16; NLT).
>
> At any rate, to me, it made perfect sense to translate Mt 12:28 as 
> follows
> (for content):
>
> "But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then you can be sure 
> the
> Kingdom of God has arrived {at last}!"
>
> In the sense of having 'caught up' with them: it is finally here; which
> is to say, "the Kingdom of God has drawn near" (Mk 1:15).
>
> I am, therefore, most curious as to why you believe FQANW in Mt 12:28 
> must
> carry a meaning of 'prior-ity', so as to say:
>
> "Then the Kingdom of God has arrived here before you were aware of it!"

I think that you misunderstood my version: it was not literal and I 
don't really think that you and I are in any disagreement about what 
the Greek text means.  But it's not so simply "has arrived"; there's an 
element that is clear from the context of the Jesus-saying that those 
whom he addresses didn't recognize the fact of the Kingdom's arrival: 
its arrival "snuck up on them." Nor do I think that the statement of 
Jesus in Mt 12;28 is quite equivalent to the HGGIKEN hH BASILEIA TOU 
QEOU; the latter is a proclamation; the element of surprise is clearly 
evident,however, in Mt 12;28 from the EF' hUMAS.

Incidentally, hereafter please use a full-name signature in accordance 
with B-Greek protocol (if you haven't yet read the BG-FAQ, please read 
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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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