[B-Greek] Acts 26:2-3

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sat Feb 2 15:15:52 EST 2008


On Feb 2, 2008, at 2:42 PM, Randall Buth wrote:

> v.2 PERI PANTWN hWN EGKALOUMAI hUPO IOUDAIWN,
> BASILEU AGRIPPA,
> hHGHMAI EMAUTON MAKARION EPI SOU
> MELLWN SHMERON APOLOGEISTHAI [,]
> v.3 MALISTA GNWSTHN ONTA SE PANTWN TWN
>        KATA IOUDAIOUS EQWN TE
>        KAI ZHTHMATWN -
> DIO DEOMAI MAKROQUMWS AKOUSAI MOU.
>
> With due respect to those who would link
> GNWSTHN ONTA SE ... to a previous SOU,
> it seems to me that Luke intended this as the subject of AKOUSAI.
> Yes, it does dangle, but only because the DIO intervenes.
> DIO separates the accusative subject from its infinitive and makes  
> it dangle.
> But I ask myself where I would put the DIO? there isn't a good place
> unless before MALISTA.
> And if DIO had been dropped then the whole sentence would read more  
> smoothly.
> Naturally, I would add at least a comma or period before MALISTA.
> I haven't gone to look at the long run-on sentence(s) of accusatives
> in Plato's SYMPOSION or Thoukydides speeches, but languages and
> communication universally allow speakers to hang a clause and restart.
> That is what DIO seems to do to the flow here.

I don't say that can't be the case, Randall, but my impression is that  
DEOMAI ordinarily takes a genitive of the person of whom a request is  
made and an accusative noun of the request. I continue to suspect that  
we simply have a case of bad grammar here -- an anacoluthon; I think  
it's probable that a participle of some sort, as I suggested earlier,  
is implicit but that the speaker in the narrative moves on with this  
self-congratulation regarding King Agrippa's understanding with some  
lingering force of the verb hHGHMAI.
>
>
> Carl APEKRIQH Hugh:
>> On Feb 1, 2008, at 7:56 PM, Hugh Donohoe Jr. wrote:
>> In my read through Acts, I have stumbled across
>> another interesting instance of grammar. First let me
>> quote the verses.
>>
>> v.2 PERI PANTWN hWN EGKALOUMAI hUPO IOUDAIWN, BASILEU
>> AGRIPPA, hHGHMAI EMAUTON MAKARION EPI SOU MELLWN
>> SHMERON APOLOGEISTHAI v.3 MALISTA GNWSTHN ONTA SE
>> PANTWN TWN KATA IOUDAIOUS EQWN TE KAI ZHTHMATWN, DIO
>> DEOMAI MAKROQUMWS AKOUSAI MOU.
>>
>> When I was translating verse 3 I was a little
>> surprised by the accusative participle (ONTA) with SE.
>> A.T. Robertson notes in his Word Pictures that
>> commentators takes this accusative differently. Some
>> take it as a accusative absolute after old Greek
>> idiom. Some take it as anacoluthon or grammatical
>> inconsistency. These can be intentional or
>> unintentional (See Smyth, Greek Grammar p. 671-2).
>> Blass-Debrunner-Funk also considers this an instance
>> of a solecism (Section 137 (3)). BDF considers this an
>> instance of a dangling participle. Most who consider
>> this an error link it to the genitive SOU in the
>> previous verse and say the accusative participle "is
>> too soon".
>>
>> While I was a little surprised to see the accusative,
>> it struck me as odd, not as wrong. This is not one of
>> those obvious instances of bad grammar like in the
>> Apocalypse (for me anyway). So would someone please
>> unpack what all the fuss is about.
>>
>> Just off the top of my head. Could the SE be the
>> direct object of hHGHMAI. Could Paul consider himself
>> "blessed to give a defense before you" and consider
>> "you an expert". A sort of double accusative. Probably
>> not, but I'm just throwing it out there.
>
> Interesting question. I do think it's bad grammar, but not like the
> bad grammar of Revelation (I've heard some make the startling
> suggestion that the author of Revelation deliberately violates the
> rules of Greek grammar, but I'm more inclined to think that he doesn't
> really think like a native Greek-speaker). The word is, I think,
> anacoluthon. My impression is that the GNWSTHN ONTA SE was intended as
> the object of a participle of judgment, perhaps even something like
> EIDWS or GINWSKWN or hHGOUMENOS ("deeming you to be knowledgeable
> concerning ... "). Certainly the participle (rather than infinitive)
> in indirect discourse is standard when the governing verb is one of
> perception or judgment. It might well be that Paul (or this narrator
> representing Paul's speech) is, as you suggest, thinking as if the
> hHGHMAI were still the operant verb. I think it's a grammatical slip-
> up -- one that clearly does not render the text unintelligible at all.
> It's the sort of slip-up I have myself made (and I would guess that
> others have also) many a time, especially when responding to e-mail
> queries at a time when mind and fingers are not quite in synch and
> what ends up on the page is not exactly what had originally been
> intended.
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
> -- 
> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicalulpan.org
> χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη
> שלום לכם וברכות
> randallbuth at gmail.com
> ---
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Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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