[B-Greek] mia

Steven Lo Vullo themelios at charter.net
Sun Jan 30 20:45:58 EST 2005


On Jan 30, 2005, at 1:08 PM, Ken Graham wrote:

> I am new to b-Greek, and have taken Classical Greek at Calvin College. 
>  I have noticed the expression "first day of the week" used about 8 
> times in the New Testament.  Most of these use the Greek word MIA for 
> one or first.  However, one of them uses PRWTOS which seems to be more 
> proper.  Does anyone know why MIA a female gender was used with 
> SABBATWN  a neuter word?  Could it be the Jews were counting the 7 
> sabbaths toward PENTHKOSTH a female gender noun and hence the use of 
> MIA?  Or is there some other history behind the use of MIA?

Welcome, Ken.

I have always assumed (perhaps wrongly) that MIAi (feminine singular 
dative) as in THi MIAi TWN SABBATWN (see Mark 16.2; Luke 24.1; John 
20.1) is feminine because hMERAI (feminine singular dative of hHMERA, 
"day") is implied. Note John 20.19:

OUSHS ... OYIAS THi hHMERAi EKEINHi THi MIAi SABBATWN...

"being ... evening on that day, the first [day] of the week..."

Note that THi MIAi SABBATWN is in apposition to THi hHMERAi EKEINHi, 
which would seem to indicate that hHMERAi is implied in THi MIAi 
SABBATWN (THi MIAi [hHMERAi] SABBATWN).

Why, though, a cardinal number being used as an ordinal? BDAG points 
out this usage (4.a, b, s.v. hEIS) and in 4.a. says, "perh. Hebraistic 
... is its use w. expressions denoting time instead of the ordinal 
number," but in 4.b notes that even in non-Semitic settings the 
cardinal may be used for the ordinal. HTH.
============

Steven Lo Vullo
Madison, WI
MAR student
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School




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