[B-Greek] Adjectival genitive in Titus 2:13 / Revelation 12:14
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Aug 15 11:59:50 EDT 2006
On Aug 15, 2006, at 11:52 AM, Jason Hare wrote:
> 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?
Yes ... and yes. I think this is probably a Semitism; surely THN
EPIFANEIAN THS DOXHS means "glorious appearing." On the other hand, I
don't think that a descriptive genitive functioning like an adjective
modifying its head noun is by any means alien to Greek. I've even
seen it argued that the genitive of the self-same noun attached to a
noun adjectivally intensifies the head noun, i.e. that the
Aristotelian phrase NOHSIS NOHSEWS means "knowing/intuition par
excellence" rather than "knowing of knowing" -- NOHSEWS is not an
"objective" genitive.
>
>
> 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/
>>
>>
>> ---
>> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
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>
>
>
> --
> Jason A. Hare
> jaihare at gmail.com
> Joplin, Missouri (USA)
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
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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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