[B-Greek] Nominatives and Genitives
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Oct 17 07:45:12 EDT 2006
On Oct 17, 2006, at 1:55 AM, David Thiele wrote:
> A friend has asked me about a particular Greek construction which
> involves the use of a noun in conjunction with a genitive form of
> the same noun. Specific questions were:
>
> 1. Does this construction have a technical name
> 2. Does this structure have any particular exegetical significane.
>
> The text which led to the question arising was Deut 17:8 and
> particularly its use of the nominative and genitive of KRISIS
> together --
>
> EAN DE ADUNATHSH(i) APO SOU hRHMA EN KRISEI ANA MESON hAIMA
> hAIMATOS KAI ANA MESON KRISIS KRISEWS KAI ANA MESON AFH (h)AFHS KAI
> MESON ANTILOGIA ANTILOGIAS,
> (h)RMATA KRISEWS EN TAIS POLESIN (h)UMWN, ANABHSH(i) EIS TON
> TOPON (h)ON AN EKLEXHTAI KURIOS (h)O QEOS SOU EPIKLHQHNAITO ONOMA
> AUTOU EKEI
>
> Any information that anyone can give me on this would be
> appreciated.
I think this is a matter upon which our LXX authority, Al Pietersma,
could probably best advise you, although I'm sure there are others
here too who could help.
I think this is not really a matter of ordinary Greek construction
but rather of a kind of woodenly-literal translation of Hebrew
phraseology.
The real problem is with ANA MESON hAIMA hAIMATOS KAI ANA MESON
KRISIS KRISEWS KAI ANA MESON AFH (h)AFHS KAI (ANA) MESON ANTILOGIA
ANTILOGIAS ... (I think you omitted an ANA before the last MESON);
these ANA MESON phrases accompanied by the nominative and genitive of
a noun seem to represent a Hebrew prepositional construction using
Bayn and one noun, then L' and a second noun to expression of
relationship between two persons/things or distinction/difference
between two persons/things. The Greek translation uses the genitive
sg. of the identical noun to indicate the second person/thing in
relationship to or at odds with the first person/thing. Thus the
phrase in the LXX Greek ANA MESON hAIMA hAIMATOS means something like
"between blood and blood," ANA MESON KRISIS KRISEWS means something
like "between legal claim and legal claim" and ANA MESON hAFH hAFHS
means something like "between wound and wound," and ANA MESON
ANTILOGIA ANTILOGIAS means something like "between counter-claim and
counter-claim." These are all matters of disputes between two parties
that are too difficult to resolve in a a court of local elders "at
the gates" of a town and are matters therefore that must be taken to
God's judgment at the shrine of the tribal confederacy.
I think we would have to say that the Greek in these phrases is not
at all standard ancient Greek and would hardly be intelligible to one
who has no understanding of the Hebrew original from which this
derives. Certainly ANA MESON is here prepositional and the nominative
and genitive forms of the noun are meant to indicate the antithetical
pair that is governed by the preposition -- but no Greek preposition
can govern a nominative noun.
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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