[B-Greek] EIMI with no Predicate Nominative
Albert Pietersma
albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca
Sat Oct 11 21:44:02 EDT 2008
On Oct 11, 2008, at 7:39 PM, Carl Conrad wrote:
>
> 1 Chron 23:3 reads καὶ ἠριθμήθησαν οἱ
> Λευῖται ἀπὸ τριακονταετοῦς καὶ
> ἐπάνω [KAI HRIQMHQHSAN hOI LEUITAI APO TRIAKONTAETOUS KAI
> EPANW]: "The Levites were numbered/counted from 30-year-old and
> upwards" -- meaning, evidently, that those younger than 30 years old
> were not counted in the tally. Looking now at verse 27, we see
> ὅτι ἐν τοῖς λόγοις Δαυιδ τοῖς
> ἐσχάτοις ἐστὶν ὁ ἀριθμὸς υἱῶν
> Λευι ἀπὸ εἰκοσαετοῦς καὶ ἐπάνω [hOTI
> EN TOIS LOGOIS DAUID TOIS ESCATOIS ESTIN hO ARIQMOS hUIWN LEUI APO
> EIKOSAETOUS KAI EPANW], and in the context of the larger unit, we
> recognize that ARIQMOS hUIWN LEUI ESTIN must be equivalent to
> HRIQHMHQHSAN hOI LEUITAI: "The tally of the Levites/sons of Levi
> is ... " = "The Levites were counted ... " The construction of verse
> 27 is more complicated than I thought when i first looked at it
> without considering its larger context. The phrase APO EKOSAETOUS
> KAI EPANW in verse 27 is predicative with ESTIN, while the phrase EN
> TOIS LOGOIS DAUID TOIS ESCATOIS is adverbial to the whole clause,
> explaining WHERE, or WITH REFERENCE TO WHAT, "the tally of the sons
> of Levi is 'from 20-years-old and upwards'". I don't think this is a
> standard Greek construction, probably it's what Al Pietersma
> understands as "interlinear" style of literal translation from the
> Hebrew. Let's ask his opinion. I may be all wet on this, but I think
> ordinary Greek prose would have used a predicate genitive with ESTIN
> here; perhaps the APO EKOSAETOUS KAI EPANW repreents a partitive
> expression, but in any case, the phrse is predicative with ESTIN.
While 1 Chron 23:3 is literal and largely isomorphic (morpheme-for-
morpheme) and as such is compatible with interlinearity, I am not
sure that one needs to invoke interlinearity to account for the Greek
text. That is to say, though an item like TRIAKONTAETOUS might have
been rendered more literally, it is more difficult to point to any
given item that violates Greek code.
I would read APO EKOSAETOUS KAI EPANW not as an adjectival but rather
as an adverbial. That is to say, it tells us where/at what point the
counting started rather than who are being counted.
Al
>
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
>
>
—
Albert Pietersma PhD
21 Cross Street,
Weston ON Canada M9N 2B8
Email: albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca
Homepage: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~pietersm
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