[B-Greek] APOLESAI & APOLHTAI, active & middle

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sun Jan 13 11:34:20 EST 2008


On Jan 13, 2008, at 8:37 AM, Anita Clerke wrote:

> Thanks Vasilis for your reply. It was very helpful.
> I gather from the book "Interlinear For The Rest Of US" by William D
> Mounce that APOLESAI (as found for instance in Matthew 10:28) is the
> aorist infinitive active voice.
> Also that APOLHTAI (as found for instance in Matthew 5:29) is the
> aorist middle voice subjunctive.
> I am trying to come to grips with the implications of the two
> inflections as found in the GNT. In particular, middle voice
> implications are very confusing to me still!
>
> Would it be reasonable to say that:
> 1)  APOLESAI (often translated as destroy) implies the active work of
> the subject, and thus the reason or agent for the destruction is
> explicitly present. For example: "The drought destroyed the plants.";
>
> 2) a) APOLHTAI (often translated as perish) carries the connotation
> of the object being destroyed, but that this may have happened due to
> the absence of a necessary carer or preserver? I am thinking that
> Luke 21:18  is relevant here, as  if the head dies it can no longer
> nourish the hair.
>
> 2) b)Or is the meaning of APOLHTAI more along the lines that the
> perishing happened but that the reason for the destruction is not
> given explicitly. For example "The plants perished."? I am thinking
> that John 6:12 is relevant here.

The active forms (APOLLUMI, APOLW, APWLESA) are causative in the  
sense, "waste," "destroy," "ruin," etc. The middle forms (APOLLUMAI,  
APOLOUMAI, APOLWLOMHN -- to which should be added the perfect APOLWLA)  
are intransitive. There is no passive form of this verb in earlier  
Classical Attic or in NT Koine. The middle simply means "perish,"  
"waste away," "come to naught," etc. -- but in the right circumstances  
the middle may be understood in a passive sense, partcularly where an  
instrument or agent is indicated by a standard intstrumental or  
agentive indicator.

> On 11/01/2008, at 1:49 AM, vasilis tsialas wrote:
>
>> Apolesai is the aorist infinitive of APOLLYMI, which means
>> (according to BDAG):
>>
>> 1. to cause or experience destruction
>> 2. to fail to obtain what one expects or anticipates, lose out on,
>> lose
>> 3. to lose someth. that one already has or be separated from a
>> normal connection, lose, be lost
>>
>> BDAG gives the first meanning for the specific verse.
>> The specific inflected form occurs more than 40 times in LXX and NT.
>>
>>
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Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at ioa.com or cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





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