[B-Greek] 1 Peter 1:15
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Jan 11 13:52:17 EST 2005
At 10:45 PM -0600 1/10/05, Charles Rempel wrote:
>Very good arguments Steve. I am not debating the middle nor do I find cause
>to debate them. I have stated all along and quoted the grammars which say
>the the reflexive middle is very rare. However, if you go look at the
>original post of Dr. Conrad on 1 Peter 1:15, he translated it as a reflexive
>middle. My position has been and remains that the passive forms of GINOMAI
>can legitmately be understood as passives.
Charles, I was doubtful that I had ever suggested translating GENHQHTE in 1
Peter 1:15 as a reflexive middle, but after searching through the whole
thread I suppose you must be referring to this, which was NOT my original
post on 1 Peter 1:15 but one focusing on the Middle voice:
At 7:15 AM -0600 12/31/04, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
> The conventional
>wisdom says that GINOMAI is a "deponent" verb, that its form is
>middle >(although we DO indeed see aorists in EGENHQHN that mean the same
>as the
>middle EGENOMHN) but that its meaning is "active"--whether we express that
>meaning in English as "become" or "come to be" or "happen" or "come
>to birth" or simply understand it as the aorist equivalent of the copulative
>EIMI. But is the sense of GENHQHTE in 1 Peter 1:15 AUTOI hAGIOI EN PASHi
>ANASTROFHi GENHQHTE really "active"? What is the sense of GENHQHHTE here?
>"Become" doesn't really work very well; "Be holy"
>is a little better English but still not really good; "Become holy"? No. The
>sense is really something like "make yourselves holy" or "sanctify yourselves"
>or "show yourselves as being holy." The sense here really is middle.
Let's now look a little more closely at the context of 1 Peter 1:15; I cite
verses 14-16 in sequence:
14 hWS TEKNA hUPAKOHS MH SUSCHMATIZOMENOI TAIS PROTERON EN THi AGNOIAi hUMWN
EPIQUMIAIS 15 ALLA KATA TON KALESANTA hUMAS hAGION KAI AUTOI hAGIOI EN PASHi
ANASTROFHi GENHQHTE, 16 DIOTI GEGRAPTAI [hOTI] hAGIOI ESESQE, hOTI EGW
hAGIOS [EIMI].
What is pretty clear here is that we are confronted with an exhortation
involving a negative command ("DON'T conform yourselves to your erstwhile
passions characterizing your time of ignorance") and a positive command
("DO make yourselves holy in your entire lifestyle"). The imperative itself
(GENHQHTE) is addressed to the writer's audience and qualified with an
emphatic intensive pronoun (AUTOI). The author is urging his audience
intensely to behave in such a way as to bring about a result: AUTOI ...
hAGIOI GENHQHTE; to behave in such a manner must be within the capacity (at
least with assistance) of those exhorted, which is to say that they are not
mere passive instruments subject to God's molding. In fact, Charles himself
suggested what I would call a "permissive middle/passive" as a better
translation:
At 8:57 AM -0600 12/31/04, Charles Rempel wrote:
>CDR:
>I would suggest that perhaps a better translation would be "Allow yourselves
>to be made holy." combining the passive with the imperative. Why passive? I
>would suggest that if every other usage of this form is passive in sense
>then this should likewise be passive in sense.
I really do not think this is a pure passive; it is quite clear on the face
of it that an imperative addressed to an audience demands consent and
action on the part of that audience. I think it might be useful here to
point to Dan Wallace's statement on what he calls "the permissive middle"
in GGBB (pp. 426-7). I won't cite the whole two pages but let me note a
couple of his examples (along with the translations of each which he
offers) and then one paragraph of his discussion:
Acts 22:16 ANASTAS BAPTISAI KAI APOLOUSAI TAS hAMARTIAS SOU
Rise, have yourself baptized and allow your sins to be washed away
1 Cor 10:2 PANTES EIS TON MWUSHN EBAPTISANTO
all were baptized into Moses
His comment (p. 427): " The force of the middle here is close to a passive,
but it adds the element of cognition of the action and permission or
voluntary cause (this example might even fit better under causative
middle). It is significant that many manuscripts have the passive
EBAPTISQHSAN instead of the middle here (indeed, the passive is most likely
original). A translation that might bring out the force of the middle would
be, "and all allowed themselves to be baptized into Moses" (permissive) or
"and all had themselves baptized into Moses" (causative)."
My only quarrel with Wallace here would be with his attempt to
differentiate the meaning of the form in NA27, EBAPTISANTO and a putative
EBAPTISQHSAN. And my reason for that is that the semantic fuzziness of the
middle-passive, in my own view, is inherent to the verb-form itself, a
verb-form that the Greeks were content to leave focused upon the experience
of the grammatical subject and did not feel compelled to differentiate
between an experience initiated by the subject and an experience brought
about by an external agent or source.
In conclusion, when I looked back closely over the passage that brought
about in the first place this lengthy review of passages employing a -QH-
form of the verb GINOMAI, I was impressed by how similar 1 Peter 1:14-16 is
to Romans 12:1-2, a very similar exhortation to an audience to undertake an
exercise that will bring about its/their sanctification or transformation
individually and collectively into holiness:
Rom 12:1 PARAKALW OUN hUMAS, ADELFOI, DIA TWN OIKTIRMWN TOU QEOU PARASTHSAI
TA SWMATA hUMWN QUSIAN ZWSAN hAGIAN EUARESTON TWi QEWi, THN LOGIKHN
LATREIAN hUMWN: 2 KAI MH SUSCHMATIZESQE TWi AIWNI TOUTWi, ALLA
METAMORFOUSQE THi ANAKAINWSEI TOU NOOS EIS TO DOKIMAZEN hUMAS TI TO QELHMA
TOU QEOU, TO AGAQON KAI EUARESTON KAI TELEION.
I suppose one might argue that the imperative verbs here in the present
tense (SUSCHMATIZESQE, METAMORFOUSQE) are really passive rather than
middle. Wallace, I think, would call them "permissive middle," but since he
says "The force of the middle here is close to a passive," perhaps it might
be still better to call it a "permissive middle-passive" and recognize that
the line between the Greek middle and passive is sometimes so subtle as to
evanesce, even if at other times there can be no doubt that there is an
external agent or cause at work upon the grammatical subject.
--
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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