[B-Greek] word order
R Yochanan Bitan Buth
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Mon May 30 12:58:13 EDT 2005
Shalom Mitch,
You cover a lot of ground so I'll intersperse comments. [**]
>Does it really make a whole lot of sense to talk about
word order IN GENERAL? It would seem more logical to
me to discuss the word order of A PARTICULAR AUTHOR,
but that seems to me to be the very problem of the
GNT...there just isn't enough data to make firm
conclusions, right?.>
** actually, all of the writers are using the same language. As such,
they are using the same 'signals'. Their frequentcies may fluctuate
from topic to topic, day to day, and author to author. But they are
all using the same language, with the same signal system.
>(Jude or James really haven't
given us too much to work with, and who knows if they
had others compose their letters.) If you study Paul's
word order, how do you account for Romans, which we
are told was actually composed by Tertius? How many
other of Paul's epistles (not those called disputed
Pauline letters, which I guess by definition are
believed to be composed by someone other than Paul)
did he use someone else to compose (where they Greeks
or Hebrews or Chinese)? And of course, how much leeway
did Paul give them as they composed? A skilled writer
will consider his/her audience...so wouldn't an author
compose in such a way that best communicated to
his/her recipients (as opposed to employing his/her
own literary preferences)? >
** Good comments, though again, writer and audience share the same
signals, the same language.
>I suppose the writer of
Hebrews had a Jewish audience in mind, >
** I would call this epistle "to those who want to be Hebrews". Notice
that at the end of the letter 13:8-9, he refers to 'foreign food
laws'. Hardly an accurate description if writing to Jews.
>but the Gospels
were written for a wider audience. All of which leads
me to this question: Is there statistical work done
whereby the GNT is compared to extra-biblical
documents of the first century? Is there such a thing
as "correct word order"?>
** Yes. On statistical work you might want to start with Nigel Turner,
Moulton's Grammar, vol. 3 Syntax and vol 4 Style. Also work by Martin.
(forgot first name).
As for "correct" word order, with Greek one might better phrase this
as EFFECTIVE word order, and even more correctly as sensitive reading,
since the reader must process and best evaluate the signals, the word
order, in the text.
ERRWSO
Randall Buth
Randall Buth, PhD
Director, Biblical Language Center
www.biblicalulpan.org
and Director, Biblical Studies in Israel
Hebrew University, Rothberg International School
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
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