[B-Greek] Two men in one bed?

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Jul 20 17:10:59 EDT 2006


It might help to have the text under discussion under the eyes of  
readers:

Lk 17:34 LEGW hUMIN, TAUTHi THi NUKTI ESONTAI DUO EPI KLINHS MIAS, hO  
hEIS PARALHMFQHSETAI KAI hO hETEROS AFEQHSETAI.

I would agree with Harold that hO hEIS and hO hETEROS may be generic  
masculine rather than gender-specific masculine; certainly the gender  
of the two who are lying in one bed is not the important point here  
and assumptions of impropriety really are out of place. But certainly  
the FORMS (hO hEIS, hO hETEROS) are masculine forms.

On Jul 20, 2006, at 4:04 PM, Harold Holmyard wrote:

> Dear Fridolin,
>
>> How would you explain the masculine article "O"?
>>
>>
>>
> HH: The definite article is modifying EIN and  hETEROS: "the one" and
> "the other."  I don't think there has to be an emphasis on the  
> gender of
> the person. The definite article can function as a demonstrative
> pronoun: "this one," "that one." The word DUO seems to refer to two
> human beings, without concern for gender. In its generic use the  
> article
> singles out an individual who is typical of its class, and the class
> here is person, or human being. So the hO would simply have a generic
> function, specifying, now one of the persons, now the other. The
> masculine may function as the default gender when there are no
> particular details.
>
> Yours,
> Harold Holmyard
> ---
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Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





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