[B-Greek] Mt 1:18 hEUREQH EN GASTRI ECOUSA

Harold Holmyard hholmyard at ont.com
Thu Feb 2 12:57:56 EST 2006


Dear Webb,

>As for how the word hEUREQH functions in Matt. 1, I have an approach that
>I'm not sure is any better than what's already been put forward: 
>After his mother Mary had become formally engaged to Joseph, but before
>their union, they discovered that she had conceived a child by the Holy
>Spirit. Joseph, her husband, was a man of integrity.  Not wanting her to be
>disgraced, he intended to divorce her secretly.
>My main reason for rendering it "they discovered" is that the previous
>sentence refers to Mary and Joseph, then "their" union, and immediately
>comes hEUREQH EN GASTRI ECOUSA EK PNEUMATOS hAGIOU, then immediately Joseph.
>If M had said that she found out or he found out, that would have raised the
>question, how did Joseph find out? So M puts it in the indefinite, to bridge
>between the previous sentence, with the two of them, and the following
>sentence, with Joseph. 
>L. Harris's argument seems potentially weighty, but it raises the question
>of how M could talk about Joseph's desire to "divorce her secretly" and so
>protect Mary from scandal, if she had just failed a formal legal test of
>purity. If the "finding" was formal and legal, how could a scandal be
>suppressed?
>  
>

HH: The problem with this as I understand it is that the participle in 
Greek does not have an independent personal reference without the 
article. So ECOUSA here has to have a a noun or pronoun to modify, since 
it evidently refers to a person. If you make the verb hEUREQH 
impersonal, there is no real referent for ECOUSA, since the earlier 
MARIAS is grammatically separated as part of a genitive absolute. So 
hEUREQH really needs to have a third feminine singular subject for 
ECOUSA to have a proper referent.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard




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