[B-Greek] A new student to Greek with a question
Carlton Winbery
winberycl at earthlink.net
Wed May 18 14:13:33 EDT 2005
>
>On Tuesday, May 17, 2005, at 11:57PM, <JEvans1007 at aol.com> wrote:
>
>>At one time there was page that showed how to transliterate the Greek so it
>>could be read by all. I was unable to find that page so I hope I
>>am doing this
>>correctly. As I say I am a new student to Greek so this is a very simple
>>question to most of you.
>>
>>In Mark 1:1 ARCHE is in the nominative case, Does this mean that it is the
>>subject of the phrase that makes up Mark 1:1?
>>
>>This next question is probably not for this list but I'll ask anyway. Is
>>Mark saying that his entire book is the beginning of the gospel of
>>Jesus Christ?
>>This would means everything from the baptism to the empty tomb is the
>>beginning of the gospel. What kind of implications does that have!
>>Or does he mean
>>something else. This last portions is just the musing of an old man?
>
>Yes, ARCH (we normally use "C" for Chi, although some use "X", and
>the final vowel
>is H, not E) in Mark 1:1 is nominative. One common understanding
>here is that ARCH
>TOU EUAGGELIOU refers to the opening pericope: the appearance of
>John the Baptist
>EN THi ERHMWI and his heralding of "the one who will baptize with
>Holy Spirit." It
>is generally held that EUAGGELION in Mark does NOT mean a book of
>the genre "gospel"
>but rather the gospel message proclaimed by Jesus (Mk 1:15 PISTEUETE
>TWi EUAGGELIWi).
>
>Carl W. Conrad
I would add to what Carl has said by pointing out that most
commentators consider the first line of Mark to be the original title
to the gospel, thus the verb is understood. Since this title contains
what seems to be thematic with Mark (IU CU UU QU-"of Jesus Christ Son
of God," see the confession of demoniacs, God himself and last of all
the Centurion at the cross), it is likely that this is a title that
identifies the Gospel with the Christ himself. I would think that the
title that makes such an identification covers the whole document. So
we should perhaps understand this line as (This is) the good news
which is Jesus himself the Son of God. "Son of God" is missing from
some early mss.
By the way the stereotyped titles, KATA MARKAN, KATA LUKAN, etc, were
added in the late 2nd century when the gospels were seen as written
documents (see Irenaeus' argumentation for a four fold Gospel. Please
send any comments about this last paragraph off-line.
Carlton Winbery
--
Carlton L. Winbery
Fogleman Professor of Religion
Louisiana College
318-448-6103
winberycl at earthlink.net
winbery at lacollege.edu
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