[B-Greek] James 4:14 OITINES with 2nd person verb
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Mon Jan 2 09:15:24 EST 2006
On Monday, January 02, 2006, at 01:43AM, Elizabeth Kline <kline-dekooning at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>On Jan 1, 2006, at 6:23 PM, Scott Wells wrote:
>
>> (13) AGE NUN OI LEGONTES SHMERON H AUPION POREUSOMEQA EIS THNDE THN
>> POLIN
>> KAI POIHSOMEN EKEI ENIAUTON KAI EMPOREUSOMEQA KAI KERDHSOMEN (14)
>> hOITINES
>> OUK EPISTASQE TO THS AUPION POIA hH ZWH hUMWN ATMIS GAR ESTE hH
>> PROS OLIGON
>> FAINOMENH EPEITA KAI AFANIZOMENH
>>
>
>{snip}
>
>> Porter renders the verse "you by your very nature do not
>> know" arguing for the essential use of OSTIS (Idioms, 133). How
>> should this
>> verse be understood?
>
>Porter is arguing for the classical disticion between OSTIS and OS.
>Not everyone is going to agree with him on this. hOITINES often
>functions as a simple relative in Koine.
For what it's worth, I'd have to agree with Elizabeth here. I think
there's often no significant difference between hOS and hOSTIS even
in Classical Attic. But certainly the Koine commonly uses hOS AN or
hOS EAN with a subjunctive where Classical Attic would have used
hOSTIS AN (EAN, originally a compounded form of EI AN, has essentially
weakned to what AN previously was, a marker of indefiniteness or
contingency).
I am away from home at the moment and can't consult reference works
now, but my own inclination is to understand the hOITINES here in
James 4:14 in a sense something like, "inasmuch as you don't grasp
the ephemeral nature of your existence." I think that the relative
clause in the Koine has come to subsume functions of what would
have been adverbial clauses in older Greek, so that EPEIDH OUK
EPISTASQE has become hOITINES OUK EPISTASQE. But that's a gut
feeling I have about this, and I may well be wrong.
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/
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list