[B-Greek] Acts 22:17 Septuagintal construction of a sort? (LONG)

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Tue Jan 24 09:33:43 EST 2006


In some respects Iver has construed the elements of the sentence as I  
did myself in my earlier message of January 23, 2006 1:30:48 PM EST  
and  3:15:26 PM EST; he agrees that the dative participial phrase   
hUPOSTREYANTI EIS IEROUSALHM must construe with the preceding MOI  
which itself is a complement to EGENETO, and so, like myself, he does  
NOT view this dative construction as any sort of "dative absolute." I  
rather think, however, that he misunderstands the function of the KAI  
linking the dative participial phrase with the genitive absolute  
phrase. See below.

On Jan 24, 2006, at 4:05 AM, Iver Larsen 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!! ;^)
>>
>> Eric S. Weiss
>
>> From a linguistic point of view I would describe the participle  
>> with peripheral elements as a subordinate clause, almost
> like a parenthesis.
>
> The main clause is EGENETO DE MOI
>
> The dative personal pronoun MOI puts added emphasis on the  
> experiencer/beneficiary of the event:
> "It happened to ME"
>
> EGENETO is regularly followed by an accusative with infinitive, so  
> the subordinate clause that complements the main
> clause is:
>
> GENESQAI ME EN EKSTASEI
> "(that) I came into an out-of-myself-experience"
>
> We apparently have two subordinate clauses, both expressed by a  
> participle with peripheral elements and coordinated by
> KAI.
> The first one is
> hUPOSTREYANTI EIS IEROUSALHM
> It is dative because it connects to and describes and is case- 
> governed by MOI.
> "(after I) had returned to Jerusalem". The aorist indicates that  
> this event took place before the main event.
>
> The second one is
> PROSEUCOMENOU MOU EN TWi hIERWi
> "while I was praying in the temple"
>
> This clause is not attached to MOI, but in a looser sense to the  
> main verb EGENETO. The present tense indicates that it
> took place at the same time as the EGENETO MOI.
>
> "It happened to me, after having returned to Jerusalem, and while I  
> was praying in the temple, that...."
>
> The subject of the genitive absolute is "I", but the subject of  
> EGENETO is the semantically empty "it". The pertinent
> question for the dative versus genitive is - as Carl has shown -  
> whether the participle connects to a dative element and
> therefore becomes dative, or whether it connects to the event/verb  
> of the main clause and therefore is expressed using
> the circumstantial genitive absolute.
>
> An alternative analysis of the attachment of the genitive was given  
> by Carl, but then the KAI is awkward, and in my
> opinion the whole analysis becomes more awkward than necessary. It  
> seems simpler to assume that the KAI coordinates the
> two subordinate clauses of which one is dative because it is  
> specifically attached to MOI and the second is genitive
> because it is loosely connected to the main verb EGENETO with the  
> impersonal subject "it".

I quite agree that the KAI is awkward here if we understand it as an  
ordinary Greek conjunction linking the two participial phrases. But I  
believe that it serves rather the function of KAI in a standard  
Septuagintal construction where it represents Hebrew W',  an element  
in a Hebrew paratactic construction commonly translated into English  
and other languages as a subordinating conjunction, "that."

Note the following representative OT texts from the LXX:

Gen. 19:34 EGENETO DE THi EPAURION KAI EIPEN hH PRESBUTERA ... Heb.:  
WaYeHiY MiMoChoRoTh

Gen. 20:13 EGENETO DE hHNIKA EXHGAGEN ME hO QEOS EK TOU OIKOU TOU  
PATROS MOU KAI EIPA ...

Gen. 21:22 EGENETO DE EN TWi KAIRWi EKEINWi KAI EIPEN ABIMELEC ...

Gen. 22:20 EGENETO DE META TA hRHMATA TAUTA KAI ANHGGELH TWi ABRAAM ...

Ruth 3:8 EGENETO DE EN TWi MESONUKTIWi KAI EXESTH hO ANHR ...

2Sam. 17:21 EGENETO DE META TO APELQEIN AUTOUS KAI ANEBHSAN EK TOU  
LAKKOU ...

Common in all these examples is that EGENETO DE is followed by a  
temporal phrase and a KAI introducing what is in effect the clause  
serving as the subject of EGENETO: "And it happened on the next day  
that the elder girl said to the younger ... " (Gen 19:34); "And it  
happened, when God had taken me out of my father's house, that I  
said ... " (Gen 20:13); "And it happened, after they had left, that  
they climbed up out of the well ..." (2 Sam 17:21).

I would contend that Luke is imitating the LXX construction and that  
the KAI preceding the genitive absolute construction in Acts 22:17 is  
actually a subordinating conjunction: "And it happened to me when I  
had returned to Jerusalem THAT, as I prayed, I fell into a trance ..."

However, I think that Luke here has conflated two constructions and  
thereby created the awkward syntactic flow of this verse.

(a) I think that Iver is right to understand MOI hUPOSTREYANTI EIS  
IEROUSALHM as construing with EGENETO (and that therefore it is NOT a  
dative absolute): "It happened to me when I had returned to  
Jerusalem ...";

(b) BUT, this means that EGENETO DE is not simply the equivalent of  
the LXX construction which emulates the Hebrew W'Y'HiY ... W' ("and  
it happened ... that ..."); rather, it has as its subject the subject- 
accusative + infinitive construction GENESQAI ME EN EKSTASEI rather  
than a clause introduced by an indicative verb;

(c) Moreover, there is an awkwardness to the three personal pronouns  
following here in a relatively brief compass: MOI, MOU, ME (one might  
almost think of this as an Alexandrian word-game of what's called  
polyptoton (sequential usage of alternative declensional forms of the  
same word), but I don't think Luke is really playing word games here.  
I think he intends to imitate the LXX construction EGENETO DE ... KAI  
but conflates it with EGENETO MOI + subject--accusative + infinitive  
clause, to which the genitive absolute PROSEUCOMENOU MOU EN TWi  
hIERWi is also somewhat awkwardly attached. In my first reply to Eric  
Weiss yesterday I called attention to two other instances of Lucan  
awkwardness with the pronouns in a genitive absolute construction (Lk  
9:42, 12:36).

After thinking about this and reaching the conclusions above, it  
occurred to me that I ought to check the Culy-Parsons _Acts: A  
Handbook on the Greek Text_; it's interesting enough that I'll cite  
the whole note and cc this to Martin Culy:

"BDF (§409.4) call this 'a very clumsy sentence' and wonder if Luke  
really wrote it at all (§278). Similarly Barrett (1043) remarks that  
'the construction of this verse is astounding.' Quite the contrary,  
the whole construction follows the rules of Greek syntax (though it  
is somewhat complicated). We should, therefore, not be surprised that  
scribes made no attempt to improve the syntax (contra Barrett, 1043).  
The conjoined infinitival clause (GENESQAI ... KAI IDEIN ... ), which  
extends to the end of v. 18 functions as the subject of EGENETO,  
which also has an indirect object (MOI) that is modified by a  
temporal genitive absolute construction introduced by an epexegetical  
KAI: lit. "It happened to me, who had returned to Jerusalem-- 
specifically, while I was praying in the temple--that I was in a  
trance.'"

Pace Culy-Parsons I continue to think this is, as BDF express it, "a  
very clumsy sentence." But I think also that it has been made  
clumsier by the syntactic conflation of (1) a LXX construction based  
upon Hebraic narrative usage, and (2) a more standard Greek  
construction with acc. + inf. clause functioning as subject of  
EGENETO. At any rate, perhaps what all of us who've entered into this  
discussion might agree upon is (a) we're not really in doubt about  
WHAT the verse means, and (b) the phrase MOI hUPOSTREYANTI EIS  
IEROUSALHM is NOT a "dative absolute."

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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