[B-Greek] hAPTW
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Jul 22 18:08:16 EDT 2008
On Jul 22, 2008, at 5:22 PM, Tom Moore wrote:
> hAPTW
>
> hAPTW in the active morphoparadigm is to light a lamp (Luke 8:16,
> 11:33, and 15:8) or to kindle a fire (Luke 22:55 and Acts 28:2).
>
> hAPTW in the middle-passive (mp) form + genitive is to touch someone
> or something. For example, when Jesus in Luke 8:45 asks, "Who
> touched me?" (TIS hO hAYAMENOS MOU;) the question is structured as,
> "Who is the one being touched by me?"
But who on earth structures it that way? It should be (if we're trying
to represent the Greek structure in an English paraphrase), "Who is
the one having laid a hand on me?"
> My first question is: How should the voice in the second usage be
> classified: active? middle? middle-deponent?
Middle. This is one of those verbs that should probably be lemmatized
with the middle form hAPTOMAI; it is really the active form that is
secondary. You might note that the verb appears 39x in the GNT, 4x in
the active, 35x in the middle. There are certainly no passive usages
of this verb in the GNT.
> ***
>
> My second question:
>
> Περὶ δὲ ὧν ἐγράψατέ, καλὸν
> ἀνθρώπῳ γυναικὸς μὴ ἅπτεσθαι. (1 Cor
> 7:1)
> PERI DE hWN EGRAYATE, KALON ANQRWPWi GUNAIKOS MH hAPTESQAI.
>
> If we follow the second usage, then "KALON ANQRWPWi GUNAIKOS MH
> hAPTESQAI" would be translated "It is good for a man to not touch a
> woman" rather than "to not be touched by a woman."
>
> But in light (pun not intended) of 1 Cor 7:9--"For it is better to
> marry than to burn"--could 1 Cor 7:1 actually be a passive of the
> first sense: "It is good for a man not be set on fire [that is,
> aroused to desire] by a woman"?
No, no, no, no! That's putting the cart before the horse; the middle
form is standard; the active form is causative: "bring into contact."
You might have a look at my page on ancient Greek voice: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/GrkVc.html
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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