[B-Greek] Mt 9.18a Indefinite articles

Tony Pope borikayaama_tekiri at sil.org
Tue Mar 18 17:12:09 EDT 2008


Carl Conrad has mentioned that hEIS was in the process of coming into use as
an indefinite article. And Steve Runge has given a helpful introduction to
the intricacies of introducing participants to a narrative. But I am not
sure that Mitch's question has entirely been answered.

Essentially it is Matthew who uses hEIS as an indefinite for introducing
participants rather than the TIS that it is used in other gospels. But why
does Matthew introduce some of those who come to Jesus with hEIS, such as
ARCWN hEIS (9.18) and hEIS (19.16), and others with no indefinite at all,
such as hEKATONTARCOS (8.5), PARALUTIKON (9.2), ANQRWPOS (17.14), not to
mention others that are qualified by an adjective or similar?

Some readers will put such variations down to "style" and leave it at that.
But my interest in details makes me look for a more complete answer. Is
the author signalling that these particular stories are more important to
his theme than the others, on the principle that the more unusual the
linguistic signals used the more significant the content? Or could it be
that hEIS is used for people who were important in the society of the day
but who the author did not wish to name? (The man in 19.16 is the "rich 
young ruler".)

Tony Pope


On Mar 16, 2008, at 11:20 PM, Mitch Larramore wrote:


TAUTA AUTOU LALOUNTOS AUTOIS IDOU ARCWN hEIS ELQWN
PROSEKUNEI AUTWi LEGWN....

To take ARCWN hEIS as "one leader" seems awkward in
this context. I note many translations prefer "a
leader/ruler." It would seem then that this is pretty
clearly to be taken as an indefinite article. Why,
since this indefinite use was readily available to
first century Greeks, did they use it in only rare
instances? Obviously ARCWN itself could have been
used, but at the risk of it being understood as
Monadic or Well-Known, etc. As it is quite obvious
from my questions, I only can "think" in English so
many of my questions come from how an American in the
21st century looks at things. But it just seems like
having a sure-enough indefinite article would come in
rather handy now and then.

Mitch Larramore
Sugar Land, Texas






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