[B-Greek] 1 Peter 1:15"

Cirk Bejnar eluchil404 at yahoo.com
Sat Jan 1 22:50:15 EST 2005


--- Charles Rempel <CharlesR at mygalaxyexpress.com>
wrote:
> CDR: First, I am not discussing the middle voice.
> Therefore, yes, my
> observations are simplistic. For a deeper discussion
> I suggest you get
> involved in the thread on the middle voice which
> Carl W. Conrad started.

But you are are arguing, contra Dr. Conrad, that the
'passive' _forms_ of GIGNOMAI have a distinctively
passive rather than a middle sense.  To make this case
you need credible rather than overly simplistic
definitions of the voices.

In particular I think that your method of determining
the voice (by asking who the implied agent is) is
seriously flawed.  I will quote Dr. Conrad who just
recently restated his opinion both clearly and
susinctly
"What I think needs to be understood is that, when a
middle-passive morphoparadigm is used, whether it's
technically speaking middle or passive (i.e. -QH-),
the focus is upon what the subject undergoes or
experiences, NOT upon the agent."

This consistent with my own experience in reading
Greek.  These verbs are used to describe states and
the entry into them.  Greek is perfectly capable of
supplying an agent directly, as with hUPO, or by
implication.  But more often what is not stated in the
text is not indicated in the text.

 
> Secondly, this is not a middle voice it is passive.
> In the Romans 11 passage
> Paul uses the middle voice in verses 1 & 6. He uses
> the active voice in
> verse 5. Verse 9 is the passive voice. I think that
> Paul would be somewhat
> astounded to the fact that he did not understand the
> form carelessly slipped
> back and forth between a hypothetical MP1 and MP2.
> As a matter of fact I
> would suspect that Paul would have no clue as to
> what MP1 and MP2 stood for.

Of course Paul himself had no knowledge of modern
English terms for Greek grammar (including Middle and
Passive, I might add), but it wouldn't take more than
5 minutes to explain that MP1 = -MAI, -SAI, TAI and
MP2 = -QHN, -QHS, -QH.  The fact that traditionally
these groups have been termed Middle and Passive
respectively should not be seen as conclusive evidence
that in _every_ case (at least) they bear those
semantic functions.  Aorist passives, were originally
(ie in Homer) intransitive forms with no distinct
passive sence.  And traces of thise use remain in the
later language.

Cirk R. Bejnar


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