[B-Greek] Special use of the dative James 4:1

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Nov 24 06:02:10 EST 2008


B-Greekers: Two messages from Piet Huttenga failed to come through  
properly because they were sent in MIME HTML formatting rather than in  
plain-text; here are the transcribed messages:
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From: Piet Huttenga <piet_huttenga at sil.org>
Date: November 24, 2008 1:51:17 AM EST
To: Iver Larsen <iver_larsen at sil.org>
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Special use of the dative James 4:17
Reply-To: piet_huttenga at sil.org

Giving things a name does not always help, but your discussion  
reminded me to my classical education at school.
We learned about a dativus possessoris in Latin

eg. Mihi est gaudia. I have joy. (Mihi (dative singular of ego "I" est  
(3rd p sg indic. pres. esse "to be"  gaudia (pred. n. "joy")).

So I decided to go for searching "dativus possessoris in Greek".

I found at least one example.      Hmin (dative pl.) summachoi (nom.  
pl) eisin.    We have allies. (www.1theolexamen.de/nt/greek/ 
altgrmin.pdf )

Of course one example is not enough, and it maybe due to Roman (Latin)  
influence. As far as I remember this construction (esse + dativus)  
possessoris is quite common, but it might be an exception in Greek.

Piet Huttenga
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From: Piet Huttenga <piet_huttenga at sil.org>
Date: November 24, 2008 2:06:35 AM EST
To: Iver Larsen <iver_larsen at sil.org>
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Special use of the dative James 4:17
Reply-To: piet_huttenga at sil.org


In wikipedia, when you look for dative case you will find amonst other  
things the following:

"(...)"
In some languages the dative case has assimilated the functions of  
other now-extinct cases. Dative also marks possession in Classical  
Greek, which has lost the locative andinstrumental cases.

Then later on:
	• Dativus possesivus: The dativus possesivus, or the 'dative of  
possession' is the dative used to denote the possessor of a certain  
object or objects. For example:
		• "ἄλλοις μὲν γὰρ χρήματα ἐστι  
πολλὰ καὶ ἵπποι, ἡμῖν δὲ ξύμμαχοι  
ἀγαθοί." (Thucycdides 1.86.3).
			• "For others have a lot of money and ships and horses, but we  
have good allies (i.e., To others there is a lot of money..)".

This seems to me the same construction as the one you are discussing  
(hamartia autw estin), so he title of your discussion "Special use of  
the dative" seems not to be completely correct.

Greetings,

Piet Huttenga
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Carl W. Conrad
Co-Chair, B-Greek List






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