[B-Greek] Ajectival and Adverbial Prepositional Phrases in Biblical Greek

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Sat May 14 20:58:07 EDT 2005


On May 14, 2005, at 8:01 PM, James Davis wrote:

> I will try to clarify my earlier question regarding NT Greek  
> adjectival and adverbial phrases.
>
> Earlier I asked a question regarding the following two sentences  
> that were proposed for consideration by James Tauber:  'I saw the  
> man with my binoculars'  and 'I saw the man with my hat.  My  
> question was: can 'with my hat' and 'with my binoculars' be  
> expressed in NT Greek as META + a genitive characterizing a noun,  
> the object of a verb?  If yes, the next question is: suppose the  
> noun 'man' in each phrase were replaced with the pronoun him, could  
> the prepositional phrase META +  a genitive then characterize the  
> pronoun.  I would appeciate, very much, your comments.
>
> My next question concerns Luke 24:30: KAI EGENETO EN-TW- 
> KATAKLIQHNAI AUTON MET' AUTWN, LABWN TON ARTON...   One interlinear  
> translation translates this as: "And it came to pass as reclined he  
> with them, having taken the bread"...
>
> Wallace says: "Basic uses of META With Genitive  a. Association/ 
> Accompaniment: with, in company with."
>
> He or him with them. My question is: Does MET' AUTWN characterize  
> the pronoun AUTON?  Again, I would be most grateful for your comments.

No, MET' AUTWN does NOT construe with AUTON; AUTON is the accusative  
subject of the articular infinitive KATAKLIQHNAI; MET' AUTWN  
construes with KATAKLIQHNAI.

I get the impression that you're taking your cue from the word-order  
of the interlinear. Interlinears are somewhat notorious for creating  
misconceptions about the construction of the Greek; unless one  
already has a pretty strong grounding in the language being  
translated in the interlinear version, this sort of translation which  
attempts literal English  equivalents of the Greek is misleading: the  
"he" of "as reclined he with them" is actually AUTON, the subject of  
the infinitive. Once again--as is almost always the case--the META +  
genitive prepositional phrase turns out to be adverbial, and in this  
instance it qualifies the verb.


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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