[B-Greek] Acts 16:25 praying and singing?
Jeffrey T. Requadt
jeffreyrequadt_list at hotmail.com
Sun May 14 18:57:41 EDT 2006
I would venture a guess that this is an example of the attendant
circumstance participle, which is why all those translations used two finite
verbs in English connected by "and."
Unfortunately, I don't have Wallace on my computer, or I would copy and
paste into this email. I do have ATR on Logos, but I can't seem to find a
good discussion of the attendant circumstance participle (or of this
passage). If someone does have Wallace, you can look it up on pages 640-645.
I'll try to summarize his discussion here with some brief quotes:
"The attendant circumstance participle is used to communicate an action
that, in some sense, is coordinate with the finite verb. In this respect it
is not dependent, for it is translated like a verb. Yet it is still
dependent *semantically*, because it cannot exist without the main verb. It
is translated as a finite verb connected to the main verb by *and*. The
participle then, in effect, "piggy-backs" on the mood of the main verb. This
usage is relatively common, but widely misunderstood." (640)
He gives the following structural guidelines (not hard-and-fast rules, but
true about 90% of the time):
1. The tense of the participle is usually *aorist*.
2. The tense of the main verb is usually *aorist*. [Note: The historical
present, however, does occur from time to time.]
3. The mood of the main verb is usually *imperative* or *indicative*.
4. The participle will *precede the main verb*--both in word order and time
of event (though usually there is a very close proximity).
5. Attendant circumstance participles occur frequently in narrative
literature, infrequently elsewhere.
Looking at Acts 16:25, the participle, PROSEUCOMENOI is a present deponent,
which would seem to argue against it being attendant circumstance. However,
I believe this is becase the main verb, hUMNOUN, is in the imperfect tense,
and so it's not surprising that the participle is in the present tense. In
fact, if the participle was aorist with an imperfect main verb, that's when
I would probably understand it as temporal: "After praying, they sang...".
So I'm guessing that this really is an attendant circumstance participle
rather than a participle of time or of manner.
Jeffrey T. Requadt
Tucson, AZ
----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Johnson" <newsgroupstuff at gmail.com>
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 14, 2006 2:28 PM
Subject: [B-Greek] Acts 16:25 praying and singing?
> In Acts 16:25, it says:
>
> PAULOS KAI SILAS PROSEUCOMENOI hUMNOUN TON QEON
>
> I would have thought that with the combination of participle and main
> verb this would be best translated something like this:
>
> "When Paul and Silas were praying, they sang hymns to God"
>
> However, all translations I've found seem to separate the praying and
> singing, rather than make the singing related to the praying. Why
> would that be? It seems to lose the meaning of the participle, or am I
> over-emphasising the meaning of the participle?
>
>
>
> Here are sample translations:
>
> (ASV) But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing
> hymns unto God, and the prisoners were listening to them;
>
> (ESV) About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to
> God, and the prisoners were listening to them,
>
> (GB) Nowe at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sung Psalmes vnto
> God: and the prisoners heard them.
>
> (KJV) And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto
> God: and the prisoners heard them.
>
> (LITV) And having prayed, toward midnight Paul and Silas praised God
> in a hymn. And the prisoners listened to them. [Here Green even makes
> praying prior to singing!]
>
> (MKJV) And toward midnight Paul and Silas prayed and praised God in a
> hymn. And the prisoners listened to them.
>
> (NET) About midnight Paul and Silas were praying98 and singing hymns
> to God, and the rest of the prisoners were listening to them. [Note:
> Grk "praying, were singing." The participle προσευχόμενοι
> (proseucomenoi) has been translated as a finite verb due to
> requirements of contemporary English style.]
>
> (Vulgate) media autem nocte Paulus et Silas adorantes laudabant Deum
> et audiebant eos qui in custodia erant [Here keeps participle but uses
> adorantes instead of orantes!]
>
> (F F Bruce) At midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns
> to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.
>
> --
> Craig Johnson
> Brisbane, Australia
> Blog Experiment: http://bloggledegook.blogspot.com/
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
>
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list