[B-Greek] EINAI TON CRISTON IHSOUN, Act 18:5

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Tue Nov 13 02:32:47 EST 2007


On Nov 12, 2007, at 10:10 PM, Webb Mealy wrote:

> I'd really like to know people's opinion as to whether the words  
> EINAI TON
> CRISTON IHSOUN are more likely to be making the one assertion or  
> the other,
> and the Greek grammatical principles people are depending on in  
> forming
> their assessments. ...



> ...
> The words EINAI TON CRISTON IHSOUN seem to me to be susceptible of two
> different understandings:
>
> 1. You know the Messiah that you're all expecting? Well, Jesus is him.
> 2. You know Jesus of Nazareth? Well, he's the Messiah you're all  
> expecting.


Barrett ICC 1998:866, Parsons-Culy 2003:345, Wallace 1996:194-97

Webb,

It looks like you are reading this as a topic-comment articulation  
and you are asking which constituent is the topic TON CRISTON or  
IHSOUN. If this were a topic-comment construction then word order  
would be a significant issue since typically a topic is clause  
initial. However, I am not certain that topic-comment is the best  
frame work for dealing with this text where the infinitive and its  
arguments are a constituent in a clause at a higher level. When I say  
I am not sure that is exactly what I mean, I am not saying you are  
wrong, I just don't know.

RE: the syntax question

Perhaps George who has an e-version of Wallace would like to post  
pages 194-197 where this issue is discussed in some detail. I doubt  
if there is a solid answer to your question. Word order isn't going  
to answer it. The article with CRISTON doesn't answer it (contra  
Barrett) because IHSOUN is a proper name. Parsons-Culy seem to think  
the proximity of TON CRISTON to EINAI favors taking TON CRISTON as  
the subject. But Wallace disagrees and Wallace occasionally gets  
something right even though his general approach has been the object  
of regular criticism in this forum.


Elizabeth Kline







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