[B-Greek] Acts 22:17 Septuagintal?

bitan buth ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Tue Jan 24 16:14:41 EST 2006


OK, with Semitists invoked, allow a slightly different twist from a Hebrew
speaker (technically irrelevant to the discussion).

 

I would argue that Acts 22:17 is not Septuagintal and not Hebraic, but it is
at least a little awkward. 

 

Basically, Luke NEVER uses the LXX-egeneto constructions in Acts. (This was
noted already by Plummer in 1896, but most commentators have assumed the
opposite.) You will notice that the main clause following the EGENETO is an
infinitive clause (GENESQAI ME . KAI IDEIN). This is actually modelled on
the standard Greek SUNEBH+infinitive (see Acts 21:35 where Luke uses the the
pure pedigree). 

 

EGENETO [+/- time margin] with an infinitive MAIN clause (to be
distinguished from EGENETO +/- time margin + finite verb main clause) occurs
16 times in Acts and 6 times in the gospel of Luke and NEVER in the LXX.
Please note, as I repeat, the Hebraic/LXX-al EGENETO construction has a
finite following main verb. That occurs 33 times in Luke's gospel, but never
once in Acts ('cepting an example in Bezae in Acts 2). This is a very
important datum. For a longer discussion, including the citation of many an
"authority" who mis-cite the datum (e.g., Dalman, Howard, Sparks, Turner),
please see the article: Buth and Kvasnica "Temple Authorities and Tithe
Evasion: The Linguistic Background to the Parable of the Vineyard, Tenants,
and Son" in _Jesus Last Week_, Notley, Turnage, Becker, eds. (Brill, 2006).
The gist of the EGENETO matter is that Luke's style changes between when he
is writing freely and when he was using souces. EGENETO in Acts was freely
written, the gospel was mixed with sources and both the "Hebraic" EGENETO
and the "Greek" EGENETO constructions occur. 

 

Back to 22:17-Iver is right about the switching between dative and genitive
being strange. I attribute this to the change in time. The 'returning' was
at a different time than the praying and was distinguished with a different
construction. The dative is being used as the time margin frequent with
EGENETO phrases but coming from Luke's pen. The genitive absolute is then
employed as to be distinguished from the main clause, the infinitive clause,
which technically does not have a subject, a nominative. Agents are
regularly put in the accusative with infinitives, as is well known. Of
course, when the virtual subject of the infinitive clause turns out to be
the same as that of the genitive absolute, the genitive absolute structure
becomes superfluous/clumsy. 

 

What is interesting about Acts 22:17 is that it shows the "real Luke" when
trying to sound somewhat Septuagintal. He still writes with non-Hebraic,
"Greek" structures, even though he makes a point about language in this
chapter. Paul's speech was in Hebrew, 22:2, yet Luke uses non-LXX structures
and even throws in good connectors like TE, DE, and WS. Please see the
article for more detail, it is 90 pages. (I would recommend having your
library order it. Brill is too expensive for individuals.)

 

ERRWSQE

Randall Buth

 

 

Randall Buth, PhD
Biblical Language Center

www.biblicalulpan.org

c/o margbuth at gmail.com

also, Director, Biblical Studies in Israel
under Rothberg International School,

Hebrew University

ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il

 




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