[B-Greek] AGGELOS in Acts 27:23: suspenseful hyperbaton?
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Feb 28 19:42:33 EST 2007
On Feb 28, 2007, at 4:15 PM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:
>
> On Feb 28, 2007, at 4:39 AM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
>
> Acts 27:23 PARESTH GAR MOI TAUTHi THi NUKTI TOU QEOU, hOU EIMI
> [EGW] hWi
> KAI LATREUW, AGGELOS.
>
>
>> One may, of course, claim that TOU QEOU, hOU EIMI [EGW] hWi KAI
>> LATREUW is the prominent element in this formulation; I wouldn't
>> dispute that myself -- BUT -- I do think that AGGELOS has a climactic
>> impact of its own when it is heard at last following those other
>> words, ...
>
> Carl,
>
> I am somewhat mystified by the comment of Parsons/Culy (Acts Handbook
> p520-21) saying that TOU QEOU is "fronted". First off fronting
> (clause level) normally implies a location prior to the main verb.
> Secondly, it looks to me like AGGELOS was postponed for some reason.
> If TOU QEOU was "fronted" then one would expect the following word
> order to be perfectly lucid:
>
> PARESTH GAR MOI TAUTHi THi NUKTI hOU EIMI [EGW] hWi
> KAI LATREUW TOU QEOU AGGELOS.
>
> but placing TOU QEOU after the relative clause isn't the best way to
> do things.
No, I can't see that as a solution either. I don't think this is a
matter of "fronting" at all, but rather of rhetorical "framing" (this
whole topic of hyperbaton was the focus of my doctoral dissertation
-- but with regard to Greek and Latin poetry rather than prose).
Germans call it "Sperrung" or "enclosure." I think that TOU QEOU and
AGGELOS are intended to frame the relative clauses hOU EIMI [EGW] hWi
KAI LATREUW. I don't know that the effect can be reproduced in
English without some sort of alteration: "There came to me last night
from GOD (I am HIS and HIM I serve) a messenger." That retains the
word-order but it loses the syntactic bond between TOU QEOU and AGGELOS.
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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