[B-Greek] Apocalypse of Peter

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Sat Jan 7 09:18:03 EST 2006


On Jan 7, 2006, at 8:58 AM, Thomas J. Kraus wrote:

> On 07.01.2006 12:41 Uhr "Carl W. Conrad" at <cwconrad at ioa.com> wrote:
>
>> Just one or two clarifications here, one of which derives from the
>> confusion of X and C in PAREXOMAI, the other about hON AN AITHSWNTAI;
>> taking these hUSTERON PROTERON:
>>
>> (1) hON AN AITHSWNTAI is, as Thomas first had it, "whomsoever they
>> ask for" rather than "whatsoever they ask for" (as George  
>> rephrased it);
>>
>> (2 since PAREXOMAI is future, this construction IS an implicit
>> conditional after all, because hON AN AITHSWNTAI is simply a
>> reformulation with relative pronoun of EAN TINA AITHSWNTAI. But it
>> would be a conditional even with the present tense PARECOMAI, but in
>> that case a generalizing condition rather than a future condition:
>> hON AN AITHSWNTAI, PARECOMAI AUTOIS = EAN TINA AITHSWNTAI, PARECOMAI
>> (AUTON) AUTOIS.
>>
>> Furthermore, FWIW, I personally think that the confusion over present
>> and future forms of the verb PARECOMAI/PAREXOMAI illustrates the
>> questionability of using C for Xi; while it is true that X "looks
>> like" a Greek Chi rather than a Xi and true as well that C does NOT
>> look like a Greek Chi, the conventional transliteration scheme of BG
>> works best when it is observed without idiosyncratic exceptions.
>
> Carl, thanks for referring to the conditional clause, too. This is  
> exactly
> how I see it. Now I feel relieved somewhat doubting the accuracy of  
> what I
> have learnt once as grammatical conceptions.
>
> However, a colleague published an understanding of hON EAN  
> AITHSWNTAI to
> refer to the present only as it is not future tense. But in  
> conditional
> clauses things are not that easy ...

Sounds like your colleague has a shaky foundation in Greek grammar.

> Furthermore, he intends to alter the reading attested by the  
> parchment folio
> (see above) to hO EAN AITHSWNTAI ("whatsoever") on the basis of  
> theological
> conceptions. Point is that the fragment HAS hON (cf. Sib.Or.  
> 2.330-333).

It also appears that your colleague has a mind to "eisegete" by  
emendation of the text!

> Yes, sticking to a convention - here the B-Greek transliteration  
> scheme - is
> invaluable for scholarly discussions and avoiding misunderstandings  
> and
> misconceptions in the first place. George, however, did not intend  
> to do
> something wrong ...

Nor did I make such an accusation. I will say that learning the  
transliteration
scheme DOES require a bit of an effort; the BG scheme differs in several
respects from the keyboard input that I use regularly when I'm typing  
Greek
-- GreekKeys Unicode(US) -- but this is comparable to what was well said
a day or two ago about pronunciation of ancient Greek in a group  
setting:
successful communication requires uniform standards. Idiosyncracies are
not very helpful.

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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