[B-Greek] EXESTAKENAI in Acts 8:11: transitive or intransitive?
Randy Leedy
Rleedy at bju.edu
Tue Mar 8 15:12:20 EST 2005
Acts 8:11 reads, in part, DIA TO hIKANWi CRONWi TAIS MEGEIAIS
EXESTAKENAI AUTOUS.
Nearly all the versions I have access to translate EXESTAKENAI
transitive, e.g. "because he had for a long time astonished them with
his magic arts" (NASB).
I don't recall ever having seen a perfect tense form of hISTHMI
functioning transitively, however. The New Jerusalem Bible, though, is
the only one I can find that reflects an intransitive sense: "because
for a considerable period they had been astounded by his wizardry."
BDAG puts this passage in the "transitive" section, but none of their
other examples are perfect tense, and they clearly label their
"intransitive" section as applying to the perfect active.
Can anyone adduce additional examples of the perfect of hISTHMI (or one
of its compounds) in a transitive sense? I have electronically searched
all the perfects of hISTHMI or its compounds in the NT, and the only
candidates I find other than Acts 8:11 are two occurrences of ANQISTHMI
with the dative (Rom 9:19 and 13:2), but the dative appears to me to be
as likely to be adverbial as to be a direct object. At any rate, the
example at hand has accusative object, if indeed hUMAS is an object at
all.
The only other clue I can find is that the 1st perfect infinitive (of
PARISTHMI) occurs twice in the LXX with what could be construed as a
dative object (but it could also be adverbial); all other perfect
infinitives in Biblical Greek, except for the passage in question, are
2nd perfect. I did not find in Liddell and Scott any notes about a
transitive/intransitive distinction between 1st and 2nd perfect
infinitives such as exists in the 1st and 2nd aorist conjugations, but I
did not give their article is this the key that unlocks the puzzle?
Liddell and Scott does mention that the perfect can have a transitive
sense, but if the transitive sense is pretty well absent from biblical
Greek, why use it in Acts 8:11 where an intransitive sense is also quite
natural? Are the versions simply reflecting an English stylistic
preference for the active voice?
Thanks in advance for any knowledgeable help. Please CC any replies to
RLeedy at bju.edu as I see the list only in digest form, and sometimes
the digest exceeds the length that my email program is willing to
display.
Blessings in Christ! (Acts 3:26),
Randy Leedy
Bob Jones University Seminary
Greenville, SC
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