[B-Greek] rom 8:17
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at ioa.com
Tue Jun 7 16:23:02 EDT 2005
On Jun 7, 2005, at 10:52 AM, Mitch Larramore wrote:
> I've really been struggling with this response by Dr.
> Conrad. I have a hard time swallowing the concept that
> the Greeks had such a minimalistic undestanding of
> this genitive construct. I think their cultural
> heritage allowed them to contemplate far more semantic
> (deep level) options than those listed by Dr. Conrad.
> I suspect that Wallace has only scratched the surface
> of how many ways a Greek would understand genitive
> constructs from the standpoint of their MEANING.
Mitch, I'm not one of those (and I know there are quite a few)
who believe that thinking is constrained by the grammatical
resources of the language in which one does one's thinking.
But I do doubt very seriously if the Greek speaker/writer
thought, when he wrote PISTIS IHSOU CRISTOU, "IHSOU
CRISTOU here is an objective genitive" or "IHSOU CRISTOU
here is a subjective genitive" -- any more that we would
think about whether "the love of a good woman" mean
"the love that a good woman displays" or "the love that
one has for a good woman." Yes, surely the writer/speaker
must have had a notion of which possible sense of PISTIS
IHSOU CRISTOU he intended. BUT: the very fact that
the question of which of these two possible senses is
right has risen to a matter of serious discussion in the
last decade is evidence that the form of the text -- here
the adnominal genitive -- is not in itself an indicator of
the author's intended meaning.
What this means is that the grammatical construction --
whether we're talking about adnominal genitive or a
verb with a -QH- form that could be understood in either
a midlle or a passive sense -- is ambivalent or multivalent,
and one must determine from the context how the
ambivalence is to be resolved. I continue to think
that what Wallace is doing in his grammar is helping
English-speaking students to look for clues in the
context to help them resolve ambivalences such as
those to be discerned in adnominal genitives. He
uses numerous subcategories of adnominal genitive,
in my opinion, as groupings where contextual indicators
point to a more-or-less clear resolution of an ambivalence
in the adnominal genitive. I don't complain about that; my
complaint is rather against the notion that the Greek
speaker/writer had any sense of these subcategories of
an adnominal genitive. I also think that the better authors
-- i.e., the authors who took pains to avoid being misunderstood --
were careful to indicate clearly by context the intention in their
usage of an adnominal genitive; but I still don't think that
they had any sense of Wallace's subcategories, and it's
my own opinion that Wallace divides and subdivides these
grammatical categoties in a way that suggests reading Greek
is more of a science than it really is.
And you need have no fear that I'm challenging Wallace's
grammar. i think it's a very useful tool; I just happen to think
that some of his subdivision into subcategories tends to be
subjective. And I'm well aware that his authority counts for
far more than mine on these issues.
> And now that I've started reading Wallace, I find
> myself confused at yet another comment by Dr. Conrad.
> I really don't think Wallace has the cart before the
> horse; what he is doing is explaining GREEK to ENGLISH
> learners. How else is he to explain a deep level
> meaning of a Greek phrase without using some English
> translation? His translation is nothing more than an
> attempt to capture the GREEK. I think this charge
> against Wallace is wrong.
>
> Now, I've written the above to learn. Please help me
> understand why you have come to these conclusions.
> They seem so far off to me that I just had to ask.
>
> I've read some of Young's Greek grammar, and he
> concentrates on this "deep level" semantics of Greek
> syntactical constructs. What I think Wallace calls the
> semantics that are "embedded" with Greek sytax. And
> that we have to "unpack" them.
>
> In English, I can use a phrase that a native speaker
> could analyze in many, many ways in a split second.
> His culture allows him to sift through many, many
> options at lightning speed. That is what I think is
> happening with first century Greeks with basic
> constructs (and far more for more complex constructs).
>
> Mitch L.
>
> --- "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at ioa.com> wrote:
>
>
>> I would add what I hope is a clarification to what
>> George has already
>> offered as a response to your question. My complaint
>> about Wallace is that he is classifying genitive
>> (and other)
>> constructions in terms (it seems to me) of how they
>> should be
>> translated into English or another target language
>> rather than in
>> terms of how the Greek speaker/writer conceived
>> these
>> constructions. But in fact, ALL adnominal genitive
>> constructions are
>> essentially the same: the constructions in English
>> that come closest to paralleling the actual Greek
>> construction of
>>
>> KLHRONOMOI MEN QEOU SUGKLHRONOMOI DE CRISTOU
>>
>> are:
>>
>> 1. "heirs of God" -- "co-heirs of Christ"
>>
>> OR
>>
>> 2. "God's heirs" -- "Christ's co-heirs"
>>
>> OR
>>
>> "God-heirs" -- "Christ-co-heirs"
>>
>> Each of these configurations tells you nothing more
>> than that "God"
>> and "Christ" characterize the nouns "heirs" and
>> "co-heirs"
>> respectively in the same manner as do adjectives,
>> but none of these
>> configurations spells out precisely what the
>> relationship
>> is between "God" and "heirs" and between "Christ"
>> and "co-heirs."
>>
>> The translators' decision to opt for the phrase
>> "co-heirs WITH
>> Christ" instead of "co-heirs OF Christ" might be for
>> clarity's sake
>> because we don't want to suggest that we inherit
>> FROM Christ but
>> rather that LIKE Christ we inherit FROM God. The
>> translator
>> wants to avoid phrasing that might be misleading to
>> one who is
>> reading the phrase in a language other than the
>> original.
>>
>>
>> On Jun 5, 2005, at 4:49 PM, nicholas runecrow wrote:
>>
>>
>>> "Carl has complained (well, I don't know that
>>>
>> "complained" is quite
>>
>>> the
>>> correct word) that some such as Dan Wallace have
>>>
>> overly distinguished
>>
>>> various usages of the cases. Perhaps your problem
>>>
>> is that you take
>>
>>> these
>>> distinctions too seriously. Yes, we can
>>>
>> distinguish various usages
>>
>>> for
>>> the genitive (please note the spelling), but to
>>>
>> the Greek they
>>
>>> would all
>>> have been simply genitive.
>>>
>>> george
>>> gfsomsel"
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks for the reply George. I am basically
>>>
>> wondering if there is
>>
>>> something in the Greek construct that pushes for
>>>
>> two different
>>
>>> distinctions of the genItives. When you say "to
>>>
>> the Greek, they
>>
>>> would all have been simply genitive" you seem to
>>>
>> be echoing what
>>
>>> I've said- that there really wouldn't be a reason
>>>
>> to translate
>>
>>> these two cases with different English words.
>>>
>>> This is why I am trying to determine why virtually
>>>
>> all English
>>
>>> translations do make this distinction between the
>>>
>> two genitives. I
>>
>>> am certainly not at the level of knowledge of
>>>
>> Greek that most
>>
>>> translators have attained, and so I am left
>>>
>> wondering what they are
>>
>>> seeing that I am not to cause such a distinction.
>>>
>>> If I am understanding the thrust of your reply,
>>>
>> you are saying that
>>
>>> there is no reason for the use of differing
>>>
>> English translations?
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
> _________________________________________________________________
>
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>>
>>> direct/01/
>>>
>>> ---
>>> 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
>> cwconrad2 at mac.com
>> WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
>>
>> ---
>> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
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>>
>
>
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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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