[B-Greek] ouranw/ouranois

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Wed Dec 27 14:47:20 EST 2006


On Wednesday, December 27, 2006, at 02:39PM, <pporta at oham.net> wrote:
>I do not know whether my question matches the purposes and/or limits of this 
>B-greek list.
>But supposing 'yes', I'm asking:
>
>In the "our father" (Mt 6:9-10 and subsq.)  --------- can we guess any 
>reason for the plural "EN TOIS OURANOIS" in verse 9 vs the singular "EN 
>OURANWi" in verse 10?
>
>Or it is something rather quite irrelevant so that it could have been just 
>the inverse: "en ouranw" in verse 9 and "en (tois) ouranois" in verse 10? Or 
>it could have been even the same in both verses: "en ouranw" in verse 9 and 
>"en ouranw" in verse 10 or "en (tois) ouranois" in verse 9 and "en (tois) 
>ouranois" in verse 10?
>I mean: can we think of some, so to say, theological intention or background 
>by this difference of use of two forms  --singular/plural--  for the same 
>thing in this passage of "Our father"?

The plural is actually more common in Matthew; I think the usual explanation 
is that it represents the Hebrew form, which is plural (dual?) form ha-shamayyim.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (ret)



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