[B-Greek] Titus 2:13 / Revelation 12:14

Jason Hare jaihare at gmail.com
Tue Aug 15 11:52:24 EDT 2006


Carl,

This is a bit off-topic of the present discussion (attributive v. predicate
position and article-noun linkage), but I was just wondering -- since you
mentioned that THS DOXHS της δοξης is functioning adjectivally in Titus 2:13
-- if this is a semiticism.

In other words, do you think that Paul was using something similar to the
Hebrew construct phrase? Or it a natural feature of the Greek language to
link two nouns together (using the genitive in the second) to express a
adjectival relationship?

Best regards,
Jason


On 8/15/06, Carl W. Conrad <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu> wrote:
>
>
> On Aug 14, 2006, at 9:50 PM, Jason Kerrigan wrote:
>
> > Revelation 12:14: TOU AETOU TOU MEGALOU, reads, "great eagle."
> > Likewise I have bellieved that: THS DOXHS TOU MEGALOU in Titus 2:13
> > would read, "Great Glory." Can anyone shed some light on why
> > MEGALOU would be descriptive of the antecedent noun in Revelation
> > 12:14 but not in Titus 2:13? I am open to correction.
>
> Jason, this is Greek 101, lesson 3 or 4: positions of the article in
> relation to adjective and noun when all are in agreement as to
> number, gender, and case:
>
> Standard Attributive position: TO MEGA BIBLION: "the big book" --
> (article, adjective, and noun are all neuter singular; the adjective
> is "sandwiched" between the article and the noun)
> Alternative Attributive position TO BIBLION TO MEGA: "the big book"
> or "the book, the big (one)" -- the article-noun group is followed by
> a repeated article and adjective agreeing with the noun; the function
> of the repeated article here is to reference the immediately
> preceding noun and relate the adjective to that preceding noun; this
> is very similar to apposition of "the book" and "the big one" and it
> is also very similar to a relative clause with ellipsis of the verb:
> "the book which (is) big."
>
> Note that in both these constructions the adjective is "embraced" by
> the article which, like the adjective,  has the same number, gender,
> and case as the noun.
>
> Different from the above are versions of the Predicate position:
>
> MEGA TO BIBLION, TO BIBLION MEGA -- in both these formulations the
> verb "be" is in ellipsis (that's standard Greek practice). Both
> formulations mean "The book is big."
>
> The formulation in Rev 12:14 is what I have above called the
> "Alternative attributive position": TOU AETOU TOU MEGALOU is the
> genitive-case form of "the eagle, the big (one)" or identical in
> meaning to "the big eagle."
>
> But in Titus 2:13 you're isolating elements that belong together
> grammatically  () and linking elements that don't belong together
> grammatically
>
> PROSDECOMENOI THN MAKARIAN ELPIDA KAI EPIFANEIAN THS DOXHS TOU
> MEGALOU QEOU KAI SWTHROS hHMWN IHSOU CRISTOU ...
> lit. "awaiting the happy expectation and appearing of the glory of
> our great God and savior Jesus Christ ... "
>
> THS DOXHS is genitive singular feminine dependent upon the preceding
> noun EPIFANEIAN (here functioning as if it were an adjective: "of
> glory" = "glorious), but TOU MEGALOU QEOU KAI SWTHROS hHMWN is
> genitive singular masculine dependent upon the preceding noun
> EPIFANEIAN: "appearing of our great God and saviior."
>
> In sum, you could not at all view the relationship between TOU AETOU
> TOU MEGALOU and THS DOXHS TOU MEGALOU as comparable if you really
> understood something that is very basic to ancient Greek syntax. You
> have focused upon the superficial fact that the phrases you've cited
> from Rev 12:14 and Titus 2:13 each consist of a genitive article and
> genitive noun followed by another genitive article followed by
> another genitive form in agreement with the article -- but you have
> failed to see the syntactic relationship of the elements in the
> larger group and have actually isolated THS DOXHS TOU MEGALOU from
> the larger syntactic group in which it belongs.
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
> 1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
> cwconrad2 at mac.com
> WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
>
>
> ---
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>



-- 
Jason A. Hare
jaihare at gmail.com
Joplin, Missouri (USA)


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