[B-Greek] GEGONA

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Jan 10 10:09:16 EST 2005


At 8:19 AM -0600 1/10/05, Charles Rempel wrote:
>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.

I'm glad you mentioned the form GEGONA (older Greek GEGAA) of GINOMAI; like
lots of so-called "second-perfect" forms this one is intransitive and
corresponds to the present-tense GINOMAI and aorist EGENOMHN/EGENHQHN. Like
them it bears the ambivalent middle-passive force (as does also PEPOIQA as
from PEIQOMAI/EPIQOMHN; PEPOIQA is commonly Englished as "I am persuaded"
or "I stand convinced"--i.e. it's semantic force is passive. How you want
to translate it as an English active voice, I'm not sure--perhaps "I trust
... "

As for the perfect GEGONA; this bears significantly on how we understand
John 1:3-4 PANTA DI' AUTOU EGENETO KAI CWRIS AUTOU EGENETO OUDE hEN hO
GEGONEN EN AUTWi ZWH HN ... There is a textual problem here in that NA27
prints hO GEGONEN EN AUTWi ZWH HN as a new verse, while traditionally hO
GEGONEN is read as part of the preceding sentence. At any rate, hO GEGONEN
is generally translated (and I would say rightly so) as having a passive
sense: "what was created"--the perfect tense verb here corresponding to the
two preceding aorist tense verbs EGENETO which clearly bear a passive
sense, although some might prefer to English this as "All things came to be
through him and apart from him not one thing came to be."

KJV has "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing
made that was made. "
NET has: "All things were created by him, and apart from him not one thing
was created that has been created."

The notes to NET indicate "came into existence" is an alternative for EGENETO
and "has come into existence" for GEGONEN, but they clearly prefer to
understand the sense of the middle form and the active form as semantically
passive.
-- 

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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