[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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