[B-Greek] KEIMENH Matt 5:14

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Mon Oct 31 19:19:05 EST 2005


On Oct 31, 2005, at 5:20 PM, Mitch Larramore wrote:

> Dr. Conrad...
>
> This may be a ridiculous question, but I've read more
> than once an explanation similar to the one you've
> given here and really have never understood the behind
> the scenes workings of such a phenomenon. Why would a
> particular verb act as the Passive of a different
> verb? Did this happen with the combining of the
> various dialects into KOINH? I believe I've even read
> something similar to that with OIDA and one of its
> tense functions. Is this answerable in a venue such as this?

Actually the usage of KEIMAI as pf. passive of TIQHMI is old: TIQHMI  
means "lay down" or "postulate"; NOMON TIQHMI means "legislate,  
establish a law." DIATIQHMI means "arrange" while DIAKEITAI means  
"has been arranged" -- and NOMOS KEIMENOS means "established law" and  
CRHMATA KEIMENA EN THi TRAPEZHi means "money on deposit in the bank."

And yes, it is true that OIDA functions as if it were a present tense  
("I know") although it is the second perfect of the same verb that in  
the second aorist is EIDON, "I saw."

These are idioms. There are other oddities too, such as that PIPTW  
functions as the passive of BALLW, although this shows up more in  
compounds: EKBALLW, while perhaps best known in Koine as "cast out  
(demons)" is in older Greek the standard word for "send into exile"  
or even "divorce" while "be sent into exile" or "be divorced" is  
EKPIPTW. These are among the reasons why I have sometimes said that  
learning Greek is not so much a matter of reading a road map as it is  
a matter of becoming familiar with the terrain by repeatedly walking  
over it.


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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