[B-Greek] Matthew 28:19 - antecedent of AUTOUS
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Dec 7 05:47:06 EST 2006
On Dec 7, 2006, at 5:30 AM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
> (Moderator's note: This message was submitted in HTML formatting,
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> -------------
> FORWARDED FOR: "patrick bacon" <baconpatrick at hotmail.com>
> Date: December 7, 2006 12:55:21 AM EST
>
> This is my first post to B-Greek. I have been learning Greek on my
> own since 2003. I have had no formal training with Greek, though I
> did a year of Latin at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with
> professor David Mulroy (people have alluded to some of his writing
> here). I enjoy following the B-greek postings. Now, I finally have
> a question regarding the antecedent for autous in Matthew 28:19:
>
> POREUQENTES OUN MAQHTEUSATE PANTA TA EQNH, BAPTIZONTES AUTOUS ...
>
> Therefore you going make disciples of all the nations, baptizing
> them ...
>
>
> What is the most reasonable antecedent for the pronoun AUTOUS? Since
> it is part of a participle phrase I would assume that its agreement
> (number, gender) with its antecedent is not as important(?) To me,
> it seems "nations" is the most reasonable antecedent, but it does not
> agree in gender or number.
And you are surely right: clearly the AUTOUS means implicitly
EKEINOUS hOUS EMAQHTEUSATE EK TWN EQNWN (assuming that not ALL of TA
EQNH will actually be 'discipled)'. Some might see here an instance
of what is given the Latin name, "constructio ad sensum" ("meaning-
based grammatical construction"), but TA EQNH is neuter plural
referring to human beings who are not Judeans/Jews.
> Thank you,
>
> Patrick Bacon
> Milwaukee
> --------------
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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