[B-Greek] ELQETW and ELQATW AFIOMEN and AFIEMEN

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri Nov 28 19:11:25 EST 2008


On Nov 28, 2008, at 6:24 PM, Jeffrey B. Gibson wrote:

> I'm having a senior moment here in my inability to parse ELQATW  and
> AFIOMEN (the first a variant reading in Lk 11:2a; the second a variant
> reading in Mt. 6:12).  What am I missing?

Something really rather simple: the kinds of change that Koine Greek  
is undergoing at this period:
(1) Second-aorists are being conjugated with the alpha-endings (or  
alpha vowel) of the first-aorist; in later Greek ALL past tenses are  
conjugated with alpha endings. At any rate: ELQATW = older ELQETW: 3  
sg. aor. (act.) imperative;
(2) MI-verbs are being conjugated increasingly as Omega-verbs; thus  
AFIW is the omega-verb equivalent of AFIHMI. Thus AFIOMEN = AFIEMEN: 1  
pl. pres. act. indicative.

But we see both older and newer forms of the same verbs in the GNT,  
even within the same NT book.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






More information about the B-Greek mailing list