[B-Greek] Is this a semitism or normal Greek?
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Sun Feb 10 12:44:58 EST 2008
Thank you, Al,
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Randall Buth" <randallbuth at gmail.com>
> To: "greek B-Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>; "Hugh Donohoe Jr."
> <justusjcmylord at yahoo.com>
> Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2008 6:02 AM
> Subject: [B-Greek] Is this a semitism or normal Greek?
>
>
>> When saying 'Semitic' it may be important to point out
>> that Mark does not reflect an Aramaic narrative style
>> with narrative tote (tote as a narrative conjunction),
>> contrary what to Casey leads people to believe.
>>
>> Yes, SYMPOSIA SYMPOSIA is a Hebraism,
>> but one that means, 'each and every, by each' rather
>> than simply 'many'. It is rather rare in Greek and
>> Aramaic, though attested in LXX.
>If Randall's statement is meant to imply that because it appears in
the LXX it is Greek, I would respectfully have to disagree. >
You needn't worry, we couldn't be more agreed on this. I
treat a fair share of NT as 'tainted Greek'.
My statement was that this was 'rare',
And the LXX cannot baptise an idiom, unless it were to be picked
up and used by others in free, non-translation Greek.
> . . .
Furthermore, a translation equivalent is scarcely an item for the
lexicon. Exegesis and lexicography are to be kept quite distinct. So
what does one mean when one states that a given word/phrase means
thus and so? Is one talking about the specifics of a given passage,
wart and all, or is one engaged in compiling a lexicon?
Al>
Good question. We were talking about asyndetic
duplication duplication in Mark 6 as a Hebraic distributive,
and I pointed it out as rare in Greek, implying
that Hebraic influence of one kind or another is probably at work.
So how rare is it in Greek? Very.
A check with E. Sophocles under EIS lists only
Porphyrogenitus Cer. 261 they (women) went out to pray MIA MIA
one by one (and that is apparently from someone d. 969.)
I've seen reduplication, here are there, but I wouldn't know how to call
up a list quickly and see how many were distributive, if any.
It certainly isn't normal Greek, which is why I called it a Hebraism.
Checking Turner, syntax, p. 187, he lists shep Herm Parb.8.2.8 and
8.4.2 TAGMATA TAGMATA orders by orders, rows by rows.
also a papyri.
Interestingly, TAGMATA TAGMATA is plural plural.
And so is Mark SYMPOSIA SYMPOSIA.
Which reminds me of the famous story about R. Yehuda ha-nasi's
maid, c200 CE, who remarked (within an Aramaic context,)
(Hb) ad matai attem nixnasin serugin serugin
'How long are you going to be entering (by) spurts and spurts?"
serugin serugin is a duplicated plural noun.
But not Greek.
If you have more to share, kulli ozen, I'm all ears.
Randall
> Randall, this is the common wisdom, and I don't doubt it for a
> moment, but
> would you mind citing examples from biblical Hebrew which use this
> example?
> I'd be interested in seeing how the LXX translates them.
>
> Thanks, no hurry, just curiosity.
>
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη
שלום לכם וברכות
randallbuth at gmail.com
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