[B-Greek] 1 Peter 1:15

Charles Rempel CharlesR at mygalaxyexpress.com
Mon Jan 10 09:19:18 EST 2005


Dr. Conrad,

As to the active voice, I cited Romans 11:5 where the perfect active
indicative occurs.
As to Genesis, I believe it was Mitch Larramore who responded with a
plausible explanation of the change from passive to middle. When we
translate from Greek to English we don't always use good Greek, and if my
word processor is right we don't even use good English. The LXX while quoted
in the New Testament is not inspired. So while your point has validity for
consideration, I don't find it definitive for the argument.
And I agree we are going back over the same ground. Others will make their
judgements just as we have. Only about 5 or 6 posts and I will finish this
thread as for my part.

Thank you kindly for listening and responding up to this point. You have
challenged my thinking and stimulated my memory causing me to shake cobwebs
off of areas of my brain that need to be challenged.

Charles

-----Original Message-----
From: Carl W. Conrad [mailto:cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu]
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 5:09 AM
To: Charles Rempel
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: RE: [B-Greek] 1 Peter 1:15


At 8:41 PM -0600 1/9/05, Charles Rempel wrote:
>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.

Charles, I notice that you've said this before and you repeat it--and it
makes me wonder whether YOU have understood what others are saying:

"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."

The fact is that this verb is NEVER used in an active voice. The
"Aktionsart" of this verb is in very essence "middle-passive" in that the
verb points to the coming into being of something or the entrance of
something into a new state or the coming to pass of an event. It seems to
me that you are consistently confounding the morphoparadigms in
MAI/SAI/TAI/MHN/SO/TO and -QH- each with exclusively middle or passive
sense.

It also seems to me that you are confounding the issues of how a verb form
is to be understood as intelligible Greek and how it is best to be
translated into a target language. I've noted in my "New Observations" that
there are some Greek verbs which in their ACTIVE morphoparadigm bear a
passive semantic force:

PIPTOUSIN hOI PERSAI hUPO TWN AQHNAIWN. This may Englished "literally" as
"The Persians fall under (or 'at the hands of') the Athenians" but it
clearly MEANS "The Persians are laid low/brought down by the Athenians."

Similarly APOQNHiSKW functions as a standard Greek mode of expressing the
passive of APOKTEINW:

APEQANEN hO SWKRATHS hUPO TWN DIKASTWN TWN AQHNAIWN, "Socrates was put to
death by the Athenian jurors."

Similarly EKPIPTW functions to express the passive of EKBALLW, whether the
verb refers to exiling of political figures (EKPIPTEI hO KIMWN hUPO TWN
AQHNAIWN, "Cimon is sent into exile by the Athenians") or to divorce
(EKPIPTEI hO NEAIRA hUPO TOU FRUNIWNOS: "Neaira is divorced by Phrynion").

PASCW quite commonly functions to indicate the passive notion of being
mistreated or to be subjected to some sort of experience:

AISCRA EPAQEN hOUTOS hO ANQRWPOS hUPO TWN ECQRWN "This fellow was
mistreated shamefully by his enemies." Granted, that CAN be Englished as
"This fellow suffered shameful things at the hands of his enemies," but
there can be no question that EPAQEN in this sentence functions as a
passive taking the standard agent construction of hUPO + genitive.

>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.

I've shown you several examples of an active voice-form being the bearer of
passive semantic force. While I have readily granted, as Steven LoVullo and
Eddie Mishoe have noted, that the forms of GENHQH- may be bearers of a
passive sense and not infrequently are indeed bearers of a passive sense,
what you have written above seems to be saying that you don't think that
the "middle" form EGENETO should be understood--or at least it shouldn't be
TRANSLATED as a passive ever. I cited the example of LXX Genesis 1:3 KAI
EIPEN hO QEOS GENHQHTW FWS KAI EGENETO FWS. For some reason that I cannot
understand you want to argue that the imperative of God's utterance here
GENNHQHTW is semantically passive and the sense is "let light be made,"
while the indicative narrative assertion here EGENETO is semantically
middle and, I guess, does NOT point to an act of creation but merely
asserts that light "came into being." But at this point I could reiterate
your question: "Did light come into being of its own accord and initiative
or did someone CAUSE it to come into being?" From my perspective I have to
say that I think BOTH forms, GENNHQHTW and EGENETO should be translated
consistently with each other rather than in conformity to a doctrine that
-QH- forms of GINOMAI are of necessity passive semantically while
-MAI/SAI/TAI/MHN/SO/TO forms are of necessity middle semantically. I don't
care whether one prefers to translate both forms as passive in meaning,

	"And God said, let light be created, and light was created"

or to translate both forms as intransitive,

	"And God said, let there be light, and there was/came-to-be light."

For my part I find it unfathomable how or why these two verb-forms in the
same verse should be intended to express in each instance a distinct
semantic voice different from that of the other verb-form. I can conceive
of stylistic reasons: variation, particularly the variation common in verse
or rhetorical parallelism, such as, "She asked for a dozen doughnuts and he
bought twelve for her."

>From my perspective, of course, the two 3d sg. aorist forms EGENHQH and
EGENETO are identical in semantic force and either may be interpreted in a
particular context as either middle or passive. I can see no credible
reason why the shift from GENNHQHTW to EGENETO in LXX Genesis 1:3 should
signal some fundamental difference in the meaning of the verb.

Nor can I see any flaw in Steven's assertion that the expression TO QELHMA
TOU QEOU GENESQW in MPoly 7.1 bears a meaning quite different from that of
the expression GENHQHTW TO QELHMA SOU in Mt 26:42.

>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.

And I have already mentioned that there's no option to use an active voice
form of GINOMAI to consider a particular viewpoint. But I would insist that
either form:

	GENHQHTW TO TOU QEOU QELHMA
	GENESQW	TO TOU QEOU QELHMA

may be understood in either the sense, "Let God's will be done" or "Let
God's will bring itself into being." And I would go further and reiterate
my claim that Greek didn't ordinarily differentiate between middle and
passive--clearly not in five of the "tenses" and very probably not in
aorist or future either--because it didn't conceive the difference between
middle and passive as all that great in any case.

Finally, I probably shall not be responding to any more of these assertions
that a -QH- form of GINOMAI is passive in a particular instance for the
reason that has been stated by more than one respondent: it's never been
argued that GENHQH- canNOT bear a passive sense--but also because in quite
a few instances it is really quite disputable whether the particular
GENHQH- form is passive or middle semantically; different analysts may
examine each instance and draw different conclusions on this matter.

>-----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
>
>
>---
>B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
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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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