[B-Greek] Acts 15:11
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at ioa.com
Tue Jun 7 07:30:04 EDT 2005
On Jun 7, 2005, at 6:53 AM, George F Somsel wrote:
> On Tue, 07 Jun 2005 06:12:44 +0100 ph.maertens at sapo.pt writes:
>
>> Dear B-Greekers,
>>
>> Acts 15:11 reads as follow:
>>
>> ALLA DIA THS XARITOS TOU KURIOU IHSOU PISTEUOMEN SWQHNAI KAQ ON
>> TROPON KAKEINOI
>>
>>
>> My question is, how does the second part relate to the first part?
>> It would seem
>> to me that there are at least two possibilities. In order to avoid
>> entering in
>> the field of translation, I'll try to recast the phrase in Greek
>> (hopefully
>> without introducing too much error?)
>>
>> 1) EKEINOI KAI PISTEUOUSIN SWQHNAI DIA THS XARITOS TOU KURIOU ISOU
>>
>> 2) PISTEUOMEN OTI KAI EKEINOI SWQHNAI DIA ktl
>>
>> In other words, are they parallel phrases or subordinated?
>>
>> Any suggestions?
>>
>>
>> Philip Maertens
>> Algarve, Portugal
>>
> ________________
>
> It would appear that what we have here is an ellipsis. If we were to
> supply the omitted phrase, the sentence might be
>
> ALLA DIA THS XARITOS TOU KURIOU IHSOU PISTEUOMEN SWQHNAI KAQ' hON
> TROPON
> KAKEINOI [EPISTEUSAN SWQHNAI]
>
> The relationship is that of comparison "We X just as they Xed."
> See BDAG
> "6" s.v. KATA.
Actually this entire sentence/verse accords with traditional usage:
the uncompressed format
would be:
ALLA DIA THS CARITOS TOU KURIOU IHSOU PISTEUOMEN SWQHNAI KATA TON TROPON
KAQ' hON KAI EKEINOI ESWQHSAN.
This wasn't part of the question, but I assume it's recognized that
the subject of the infinitive
SWQHNAI is a suppressed nominative because the subject is the same as
that of PISTEUOMEN:
"we believe that we have been saved ..."
KAQ' hON TROPON is a common usage whereby the antecedent is
"squeezed" into -- or
incorporated into -- the relative pronominal expression:
KAQ' hON TROPON = KATA TON TROPON KAQ' hON ...
Finally, the verb in ellipsis after KAKEINOI must be the indicative
ESWQHSAN, not the infinitive;
it's not "we believe that we have been saved in the way in which they
believe they have been
saved" but rather "we believe that we have been saved in the way in
which they (have been
saved)."
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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