[B-Greek] Acts 16:25 praying and singing?
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon May 15 06:57:13 EDT 2006
On May 15, 2006, at 1:17 AM, Craig Johnson wrote:
>> This is really nothing more than a matter of a Greek stylistic
>> preference for subordination (hypotaxis) and an English preference
>> for coordination (parataxis). All of the versions that you cite below
>> are accurate English versions of the Greek text which you cited
>> above. Your own version above ("When Paul and Silas were praying,
>> they sang hymns to God") accurately conveys the content of the Greek
>> but is not the "natural" idiomatic English way of expressing that
>> content. One of the things that tends to surprise students of ancient
>> Greek is the extent to which Greek subordinates elements that are
>> commonly set forth in English as parallel to each other.
>
> Okay, so if I understand you correctly, are you saying that Greek uses
> subordination, but really it means coordination?
>
> In other words, given the following options, which are allowed by
> the Greek:
>
> A. Two separate activities (praying and singing) were occuring at
> the same time.
> B. Singing is actually a part of or included in the praying
>
> I think you are saying it is just the Greek way of saying A, but I was
> incorrectly assuming it must mean B. Is that right?
"A" is a better statement, at any rate. My real point is that ancient
Greek and modern English have distinct idiomatic ways of formulating
the relationships of time (priority, contemporaneity, posteriority)
and circumstantiality (causality, concession, contingency, etc.).
Even where verbal actions are contemporaneous and not causally or
temporally linked to each other, Greek tends to use a single primary
verb and subordinate one or more contemporaneous verbal actions or
states. For example, English "The adults dined together and talked
about current events " is likely to be formulated in ancient Greek as
"The adults dined together, talking about current events." If one or
more actions should be temporally prior to another, ancient Greek
tends to put the prior actions into an aorist participle, e.g., "The
adults discussed current events and then dined together" becomes hOI
TELEIOI TA TOTE DIALALHSANTES SUNANEKEINTO.
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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