[B-Greek] 1 Peter 1:15

Charles Rempel CharlesR at mygalaxyexpress.com
Sun Jan 9 21:41:19 EST 2005


Steve,

Apparently you are not paying attention to what I am saying. Let me share an
anecdote. When I was a freshman in college an I wrote my first paper in
English class I used a word which was outside of the instructors vocabulary.
Now when I wrote the paper the word which came to my mind was not one that I
commonly used so I had actually looked the meaning up in the dictionary to
be sure it said exactly what I wanted it to say. It communicated what I
wanted to say but the instructor didn't read what I said, she read what she
wanted to hear. Needles to say I blew that class of the rest of the
semester!

Now perhaps in my brevity I have failed to spell out all of the details in
one succinct statement. So, let me try to flesh it out a little bit. Here is
the hypothesis:
Using the verb GINOMAI in NT Koine Greek, when it is an active voice it
should be communicated as an active verb, when it is a middle voice it
should be translated as a middle voice, and when it is a passive voice it
should be translated as a passive voice. For the sake of my inquiry I am
examining only the passive voice aspect of this hypothesis. If it can be
demonstated the the passive voice of GINOMAI always has a passive sense
which is legitimate, then my suggestion is that it should always be
communicated with passive meaning. I am defending this hypothesis with
tunnel vision, thereby hoping to extrapolate as much input as this forum is
willing to offer.

I thank you for your input. However, your example uses a middle voice and
does not speak to the translation of the passive. Now it may speak to
meaning of theology as far as you are concerned, but we are not discussing
theology here.

Secondly, as I have already mentioned, event he same author may use any one
of the three voices to consider a particular event with the purpose of
establishing veiwpoint and communicating a particular idea. So the use of
the middle voice with the aspect of God's active involvment in using His own
will is a perfectly legitimate grammatical construction. It also does not
invalidate the use of the passive voice with the passive sense.

Respectfully yours,

Charles
-----Original Message-----
From: Steven Lo Vullo [mailto:themelios at charter.net]
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 4:02 PM
To: Charles Rempel
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] 1 Peter 1:15


On Jan 9, 2005, at 3:03 PM, Charles Rempel wrote:

> GENHQHTE
>
> Matthew 26:42 He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, "My
> Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done."
>
> GENHQHTO TO QELHMA SOU - aorist passive imperative 3s
>
> Concept remains passive in my understanding as per previous posts.

This doesn't really help your case, since the middle may be used in
such a prayer with no apparent semantic difference:

Mt 26.42 PATER MOU, EI OU DUNATAI TOUTO PARELQEIN EAN MH AUTO PIW,
GENHQHTW TO QELHMA SOU

MPoly 7.1 KAKEIQEN DE HDUNATO EIS hETERON CWRION APELQEIN, ALL' OUK
HBOULHQH, EIPWN: TO QELHMA TOU QEOU GENESQW

So the burden, as I said in my last post, is on you to prove that
GENHQHTW in Mt 26.42 CANNOT be sensibly construed as middle and GENESQW
in MPoly 7.1 CANNOT be sensibly construed as passive. In light of MPoly
7.1, it is clear that a middle form of GINOMAI is indeed an active
option in a prayer for God's will to be accomplished. And I'm sure Carl
would suggest that GENESQW in MPoly 7.1 may be understood as
semantically passive. The point, though, is that determining this on
the basis of morphology is questionable at best.
============

Steven Lo Vullo
Madison, WI





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