[B-Greek] hAPTW
Tom Moore
tom at katabiblon.com
Wed Jul 23 01:53:47 EDT 2008
re: "But who on earth structures it that way?"
Sorry, I guess I spoke "inartfully" on this point. I agree that "Who is the one being touched by me?" is incorrect. My point was supposed to be that what *looks* like a passive construct (which is what I meant by structured) is in fact not a passive, as a lead-in to my question about 1 Cor 7:1. 1 Cor 7:1 is (I think) the only case in the GNT of hAPTW mp + gen where the voice is not obvious from context (it could make sense whether read as a middle or as a passive). It's these other cases therefore, such as Luke 8:45, that show that the mp form in 1 Cor 7:1 is middle voice, that the man is doing the touching and the woman is the one being touched.
That is, if hAPTW means "to touch" in this verse. But it seemed a reasonable question to me, given "burn" in 7:9, that perhaps Paul could be playing on hAPTW's other meaning,"to light" or "to kindle." (Could one not say LUCNOS hAPETAI [a lamp is lit] or PURA hAYAMENH [upon a fire being kindled]?) I've seen no other examples of passive hAPTW, so perhaps it is not a possibility, and so I asked.
Thanks for the answer,
Tom
> -------Original Message-------
> From: Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] hAPTW
> Sent: Jul 22 '08 22:08
>
>
> 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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