[B-Greek] (B-Greek) Two in one bed
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Fri Jul 21 18:15:23 EDT 2006
I hardly think it correct to say that "The persons involved may be grammatically identified as man/woman OR man/man; *** they cannot be woman/woman. *** " I think it quite possible that they could both be women. The only requirement imposed by the use of the masc is that it is not NECESSARILY women. In the following verse where the fem is used it is by virtue of cultural practices -- the women ground the meal. On the contrary, had the fem been used, men would have been excluded.
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Daniel L Christiansen <dlc at multnomah.edu> wrote:
Iver, you made some comments that virtually none of the English versions
use the term "men." You also stated that DUO, in the absence of a contextual
referent, must be understood as implying a modification of "the most generic
noun." You then say "ANQRWPOI (people) is more generic than ANDRES (men)."
Well, KJV, NKJV, NASB, Darby, Young, and ASV all specify "men" in the
passage, so the history of English translation is hardly conclusive on the
matter. I am not aware that any such requirement as "most generic" may be
applied to grammatical referents; even if there were to be such a
requirment, it is not all clear that ANQRWPOI is more generic. The
distinction between ANHR / ANQRWPOS may not always be male human/human
being, but husband/human male: in this case, each are specific with regard
to relationships to woman (married to/other than). The point is, the grammar
just does not answer the questions being asked, here.
However, even though there are difficulties with the terms used and the
translational equivalents desired, the rhetorical sense of the passage seems
quite clear. I would have to agree with Carl, on two points:
1) The gender of the persons does not appear to be the point of the passage.
While each of these words is certainly masculine in form, at least two
issues need to be recognized in terms of the gender expectations raised by
the form. First, masculine is a grammatical "default" for Greek: only if the
person referred to were specifically conceived of as a female and NOT as
male, would there be a reason to use the feminine form. Second, the
accompanying example speaks of women, and specifically NOT of men, thus
using the feminine forms. The most we can say, is that the referent is not
required to include a woman, and must include at least one man. The persons
involved may be grammatically identified as man/woman OR man/man; they
cannot be woman/woman.
2) The contrapositioning of DUO with hEIS makes it clear there is one bed
being shared by two persons. The point here is that the two persons involved
are alike in their day-to-day activities and position. Such likeness serves
to highlight the drastic difference in their ultimate experience.
Daniel
_____________________
Daniel L Christiansen
Professor, Bible/Theology, Biblical Languages
Multnomah Bible College & Biblical Seminary
8435 NE Glisan Street
Portland, OR 97220
(503) 251-6436
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george
gfsomsel
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