[B-Greek] Matt 3:17 - import of 1 per sing aorist EUDOKHSA
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Sun Dec 2 09:12:20 EST 2007
A quick search turns up one imperfect and two presents in the NT uses of this word. The LXX has a slightly broader usage including some futures, but even there the predominant usage is aorist. In the Apostolic Fathers I find one example in 1 Clem which is a future. I see no examples of the use of the perfect anywhere in the LXX, NT, or Apostolic Fathers.
I hadn't given it much thought, but you are quite correct that this should be considered an example of the bat kol. We find three other examples of this in the NT:
1. Mk 9.2-8 (The Transfiguration)
2. Acts 9.1-9 (Conversion of Saul)
3. Re 1.9-11 (This might not be considered as a bat kol since there is a vision of Christ involved).
For anyone not aquained with the concept of the bat kol I would suggest
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=417&letter=B
george
gfsomsel
Therefore, O faithful Christian, search for truth, hear truth,
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
defend the truth till death.
- Jan Hus
_________
----- Original Message ----
From: Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com>
To: Eddie Mishoe <edmishoe at yahoo.com>
Cc: B-Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 1, 2007 1:54:32 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Matt 3:17 - import of 1 per sing aorist EUDOKHSA
On Nov 30, 2007 3:35 PM, Eddie Mishoe <edmishoe at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > KAI IDOU FWNH EK TWN OURANWN LEGOUSA: hOUTOS ESTIN
> > hO hUIOS MOU hO
> > AGAPHTOS, EN hWi EUDOKHSA.
> > >
> >
> > This is a Greek word that was popular in the LXX and
> > Jewish religious
> > contexts. However, Josephus, Philo, and Plutarch do
> > not use the word.
> >
> > The aorist is easily explained as a carryover from
> > Hebrew where
> > ratsiti and Hafatsti (he`avar, typically past
> > tenses) were used for
> > present situations (like the Greek perfect
> > PARAKEIMENOS). One could
> > call these Semitisms or perfective aorists.
> >
> > A contributing factor in the choice of the aorist is
> > the irregularity
> > and rarity of the perfect form of this verb.
> > would one say EYDEDOKHKA? EYDEDOGMAI? HUDOKHKA?
> > The simple choice for the ancient author was to use
> > a form in current
> > use in their circles and this was the aorist.
>
> The first element to check for is the temporalness of
> the proposition. This can be done a number of ways,
> but the easiest is: This is my son in whom I am
> currently well pleased...in whom I shall be well
> pleased..., etc. There is no temporal proposition
> being uttered here. So don't try to figure out why the
> Aorist is used in these kinds of propositions.
> Non-temporal propositions do not inform us about the
> temporal nature of the Aorist.
>
> Failure to partition propositions into temporal and
> non-temporal, forces irregularities on a language. The
> Aorist tense is natural in this non-temporal
> proposition; no need to resort to Semitism here. Also,
> resorting to the perfective aorist is trying to
> analyze a non-temporal statement in a temporal
> statement's world.
>
> It's almost comical to watch linguists deal with the
> famous "the grass withers..." This aorist puzzles them
> as if the statement should be understood "the grass withered..."
>
> Eddie Mishoe
> Pastor
Thank you for the direct email, it makes replying easier.
Your questions and approach on this sound fairly good. I understand
you to be saying that some contexts are outside of time and therefore
an aorist indicative, in such a context would not have any particular
or absolute time. In a sense, someone could argue that these were
aorist indicatives whose time component was contextually neutralized.
So far so good, though I don't actually look at aorists in that way.
In the specific case of Mt 3:17 we have something else happening. I
think that people are unconsciously writing their semantics and
grammar on the basis of having a divine subject. If you asked your
same questions with different subjects this may become immediately
clear.
If John the Baptist said to the crowd, "this is my friend in whom
EYDOKHSA" then your questions would not produce a non-temporal
context. the verb form helps the listeners contextualize the
statement. Theoretically, John could have been pleased in the future,
currently pleased, or pleased in the past. The aorist would normally
refer to the past but with this verb we have no example of a perfect
in either the LXX or GNT and it appears that people were able to let
this verb do double duty and cover PARAKEIMENOS, [a.k.a. perfect] too.
John was and probably 'is' happy with his friend. So yes, whatever we
say about this verb it will be some kind of special case.
and Yes, it looks like a Semitism, when properly defined. A Semitism
does not need to be bad Greek, in fact it is normally 'good Greek',
but Greek where a Semitic language has caused a 'new' idiom or a
frequency that is not natural. There are more than one cause of a
Semitism, of course, ranging from translation at some stage to
non-mothertongue language use, to a substandard dialect of Greek.
Since our gospel writers were using sources, even if Greek sources,
and possibly non-mother-tongue Greek speakers, all three kinds of
influence are potentials.
Of further interest, this almost sounds like a scriptural quote,
something not unknown in other examples of EYDOKHSA in the NT, but it
doesn't appear to be a quote from a Greek text. It is probably
non-LXX-al, though I don't have access to our extant texts as I write.
At some stage this is live language use.
sociolinguistically, this is a 'bat-qol', a voice from heaven in first
century Judaia. Hebrew is the culturally expected language for a
positive 'bat-qol'. The episode is recorded in Greek, though in a
situation where a Semitism from any of the above reasons could be
tolerated and even expected.
blessings
Randall Buth
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη
שלום לכם וברכות
randallbuth at gmail.com
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