[B-Greek] Dative Absolute? Archives

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Mon Jan 23 13:30:48 EST 2006


On Jan 23, 2006, at 12:11 PM, Eric Weiss wrote:

>> Acts 22:17 -- EGENETO DE MOI hUPOSTREYANTI EIS IEROUSALHM KAI
>> PROSEUCOMENOU MOU EN TWi hIERWi GENESQAI ME EN EKSTASEI
>
>   So, a dative absolute and a genitive absolute side by side and in  
> the same sentence?
>   Any difference in meaning or force between them, or why both are  
> used, rather than 2
>   datives or two genitives? On the other hand, the subject of the  
> dative absolute and the
>   subject of the genitive absolute are the same as the subject of  
> the infinitive phrase -
>   yet I thought "absolutes" were used when their subjects were NOT  
> the subjects of the
>   main clause - or is this not the case here because the main  
> clause is an infinitive,
>   clause, with the subject in the accusative case? Help!! ;^)

For my part, I would never call MOI hUPOSTREYANTI EIS IEROUSALHM a  
dative absolute. Rather, I would understand the basic syntactic  
structure here as the typic Semiticizing EGENETO ... KAI subject- 
accusative + verb-infinitive that is usually translated, "And it came  
to pass that X did Y" See Conybeare and Stock §41" Introduction of  
the Sentence by a Verb of Being.    Very often in imitation of Hebrew  
idiom the whole sentence is introduced by EGENETO or ESTAI." In the  
Greek we have EGENETO (DE) + KAI corresponding to the Hebrew  
WaYeHi ... Wa ...

I would take the PROSEUCOMENOU MOU EN TWi hIERWi as internal to the  
GENESQAI ME EN EKSTASEI element as a genitive absolute.

I'd take the whole as "And it happened to me after I returned to  
Jerusalem that as I was praying in the temple I entered into a  
trance ..."


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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