[B-Greek] Mt 1:18 hEUREQH EN GASTRI ECOUSA
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at ioa.com
Fri Feb 3 15:04:43 EST 2006
On Feb 3, 2006, at 2:15 PM, Webb wrote:
> See my comments below.
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Carl W. Conrad [mailto:cwconrad at ioa.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 10:22 AM
>> To: webb at selftest.net
>> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
>> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Mt 1:18 hEUREQH EN GASTRI ECOUSA
>>
>>
>> On Feb 2, 2006, at 12:29 PM, Webb wrote:
>>
>>> In relation to Acts 8:40, I was thinking along the same lines as
>>> HH. If one
>>> takes the Philip story as analogous to the kind of thing storied
>>> about
>>> Elijah and Ezekiel, then "Philip found himself at Azotus" makes
>>> sense. The
>>> author of Acts could be saying that, as far as Philip is concerned,
>>> the
>>> Spirit snatches him away and drops him in another place.
>>> Otherwise the
>>> intent could just be "and Philip showed up in Azotus". But that's a
>>> very
>>> mundane thing to say, and not a very mundane way of expressing it.
>>> There's
>>> something mysterious about the Philip story (cf. v. 39) that makes
>>> me prefer
>>> the first sense.
>>
>> I have no objection to "Philip found himself at Azotus." What
>> disturbs me, however, is that the translation is pitched to make a
>> theological point rather than to convey what the verb means by and of
>> itself. Granted it's in a context, but can't the reader draw the
>> conclusion for him/herself that you wnat him/her to draw?
> I thought you had just gotten done concluding that hEUREQH, roughly
> "by and
> of itself", has more content than just something happening; that
> (interpreted as middle anyway) it conveys some flavor of a sudden or
> surprising realization of a fact. A little story. Alfred Einstein went
> walking in his neighborhood and was so deep in thought that he
> forgot where
> he was going. When he came out of his reverie, he "found himself"
> two miles
> from home. If that little story were narrated in Koine, perhaps
> hEUREQH
> would be the perfect verb.
> All that said, I grant your point about Philip and Azotus. Using a
> weaker
> (than the sense you were advocating) sense of hEUREQH, it still has
> an edge
> of mystery about it if we just say, "and Philip showed up in
> Azotus." If we
> strengthen it to "and Philip suddenly showed up in Azotus", I
> reckon it's
> not a long ways from "and Philip found himself in Azotus".
My point here as in the case of Mt 1:18 is that we don't need to say
more
than the narrative actually says. I take it that hEUREQH in Acts 8:40 is
certainly not meant to suggest that people were looking all over the
Levant
for Philip and finally caught up with him in Azotus. "And as for Philip,
he found himself at Azotus." Let the reader draw the conclusion. I don't
know what verb Washington Irving uses, but I think we might well say
that Rip Van Winkle fell asleep and woke up twenty years later to find
himself in a whole new world.
>>
>>> 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,
>>
>> i.e. their "non-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?
>>
>> Here I would object even more to a paraphrase that goes beyond what
>> the Greek text says in order to emphasize an interpretation.
> I'm not sure what you're objecting strongly to. Is it "they
> discovered",
> favoring the passive sense and trying to make some kind of smooth
> English?
> In that case, maybe "she discovered" is better.
My objection is to "they discovered." I'm perfectly happy with "she
discovered ..."
> Or is it "conceived a child
> by the Holy Spirit", which perhaps sounds too churchy? If so, you
> yourself
> said that the "simplest rendering of all" for the middle sense of
> hEUREQH EN
> GASTRI ECOUSA was "she had conceived a child". If you have a more
> neutral
> way of relating that to the Holy Spirit (hEUREQH EN GASTRI ECOUSA
> EK TOU
> PNEUMATOS hAGIOU) besides using the English preposition "by", I'm
> ready to
> hear it.
> I'm a little confused. I'm pleased at the feedback that my
> rendering appears
> to be paraphrasing in order to emphasize a [tendentious?]
> interpretation.
> I'd certainly want to get rid of that sort of thing where possible. My
> conscious intent was simply to render the Greek into spoken English
> in as
> simple and understandable way as possible. I'd value a suggestion
> from you
> as to how best to achieve my translation value goals without
> paraphrasing or
> unduly emphasizing one interpretation over others.
>> And your
>> objection to L. Harrris' argument can be applied just as well to your
>> own suggestion that the discovery is a joint one made by Joseph and
>> Mary. After all, if Joseph realized that Mary was pregnant by the
>> Holy Spirit, why would he be contemplating a quiet dissolution of
>> their engagement?
> Using my imagination within the story world created by the text,
> I'd say
> that Joseph couldn't figure out how she (and he with her) could carry
> through the betrothal process without a devastating scandal. He,
> according
> to the laws of the time, could decide he didn't want to be married
> to her
> for any reason and at any time. His plan appears to have been to
> cook up a
> story that he changed his mind about getting married and divorce
> her with no
> allegation of immorality, so that she could go into seclusion.
But my point here was that any sermon-writer can readily take a story as
given by the evangelist and retell it in his own words, almost certainly
presenting a different perspective or pursuing his/her own fancies about
"what might have happened." But the evangelist is tell the story in his
own fashion with his own emphases. All he tells us about Joseph is that
he was sufficiently scandalized at Mary's pregnancy that he wanted out
of his engagement but without causing trouble for Mary. The evangelist
then tells us that Joseph had a vision which drastically altered his
plans.
I think it's enough for a translation to convey those facts without
guessing
about what else might have passed through Joseph's mind. For my part,
I think hEUREQH EN GASTRI ECOUSA refers to Mary's own
awareness, not just that she was pregnant, but that something very
special had happened to her; clearly it became known to Joseph also,
but, if we simply stick to the narrative we are given (as I suggest),
Joseph acted as if scandalized without wanting to make a further
scandal.
I don't think that the wording of the text suggests at all that they
BOTH
realized that Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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