[B-Greek] position of 'AGGELOS SATANA' AND 'hINA' 2Co 12:7
Iver Larsen
iver at larsen.dk
Tue Feb 28 03:34:36 EST 2006
>I have a beginner's question on syntax: Copied the pertinent verses:
>
> 2Co 12:07b DIO hINA MH UPERAIRWMAI EDOQH MOI SKOLOY TH SARKI,
> AGGELOS SATANA, hINA ME KOLAFIZHi hINA MH UPERAIRWMAI
> 2Co 12:08 UPER TOUTOU TRIS TON KURION PAREKALESA hINA APOSTHi AP' EMOU
>
> In verse 7b 'AGGELOS SATANA' (nominative) seems to me to be the
> subject of the verb KOLAFIZHi. [And, by the way, I learned that it
> should be also the subject of the verb APOSTHi in the next verse,
> rather than MOI SKOLOY]
My guess is that you are thrown off a bit by an English interlinear. The one I looked up has "he might beat" for
KOLAFIZHi, and it has "it might depart" for APOSTHi. English has to differentiate between animate "he/she" and inanimate
"it" for its third person singular pronouns. Greek doesn't. (Wherefore English speakers have a lively "gender war" in
Bible translation.)
You may find it helpful to make a clearer distinction between syntax and semantics.
Syntactically, KOLAFIZHi has only the pronominal subject signified by the verb ending, which corresponds to either
"he/she" or "it". Both SKOLOY and AGGELOS are in a different clause, so cannot be the syntactical subject for KOLAFIZHi.
Now, the semantic *reference* for that pronominal suffix is the entity described in two ways: SKOLOY THi SARKI and
AGGELOS SATANA. SKOLOY would be considered as inanimate, and therefore referred to as "it" in English. AGGELOS is
tricky, because it is usually considered animate, however, in the Bible AGGELOI (messengers) do not have to be animate.
See for isntance Heb 1:7 and Ps 103:4 LXX (English Ps 104:4), where the text says that "God uses the winds as his
AGGELOI". (Heb 1:7 (but not Ps 104:4) is mistranslated in all English versions except NJB, but that is a different
topic.)
Now, you can personify an inanimate object, and that complicates things further in terms of the English pronouns. So,
whatever that SKOLOY is, it appears to be personified when acting as semantic agent for KOLAFIZW, a verb that normally
expects an animate agent. That is probably why the "he" is used, but a target language sometimes forces a dilemma of
choice on the translator that was not present in the original.
> The question is its postion coming after MOI SKOLOY TH SARKI.
> Superficially, I thought this makes two phrases appositive, but in
> reality, I like to keep a comma after SARKI but remove it after
> SATANA. Also, if possible, I like to move the phrase AGGELOS SATANA
> after hHINA. After rewriting, the verse 07b then looks like this:
>
> DIO hINA MH UPERAIRWMAI, EDOQH MOI SKOLOY TH SARKI,
> hINA AGGELOS SATANA ME KOLAFIZHi hINA MH UPERAIRWMAI.
>
> I would appreciate if you can give me correction on this line of my thinking.
No, if you move AGGELOS SATANA away, you destroy the fact that this is indeed an apposition to SKOLOY, referring to the
same entity. In your new text, the AGGELOS could be a different entity, and this is not what the original text is
saying.
Iver Larsen
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list