[B-Greek] Numeral anomalies in optative aorist

Elizabeth Kline kline-dekooning at earthlink.net
Sat Oct 8 23:43:34 EDT 2005


On Oct 8, 2005, at 1:38 PM, Tjerk Muller wrote:

> An article by a lay bible teacher brought this to my
> attention recently. The author suggested a theological
> explanation for the phenomenon.
> That seemed somewhat farfetched to me, so I sought for
> (and found) other occurrences of 3rd person singular
> optatives, where 3rd person plurals would be in place.
>

I don't think this has much to do with the optative mood.
Number in verbs with multiple coordinate subjects is not always or  
even typically plural.  When the verb is final* it may be plural or  
singular. Compare Mk 13:31 with Mt 24:35 but also Mk 4:41, see also  
Mt 6:19, 1Cor 15:50. *(The position of the verb really isn't all that  
important but your  examples were verb final).

Several explanations are given. 1- The verb takes the number of the  
nearest term in the compound subject. 2- The verb takes the number of  
the most important term. 3- The two or more terms of the subject  
represent a single idea/entity.

You should take a look at a good advanced reference grammar on Attic  
Greek since this is not an issue peculiar to Hellenistic Greek. The  
topic is discussed briefly in Blass-Debrunner-Funk #135 and N.Turner  
Syntax pps.313-314. The treatment is BDF leaves something to be desired.

Elizabeth Kline







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