[B-Greek] MNEIA hUMWN Phil 1:3

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Thu Oct 23 18:16:28 EDT 2008


Rom. 12:9-13

9 hH AGAPH ANUPOKRITOS. APOSTUGOUNTES TO PONHRON, KOLLWMENOI TWi  
AGAQWi,  10 THi FILADELFIAi EIS ALLHLOUS FILOSTORGOI, THi TIMHi  
ALLHLOUS PROHGOUMENOI,  11 THi SPOUDHi MH OKNHROI, TWi PNEUMATI  
ZEONTES, TWi KURIWi DOULEUONTES,  12 THi ELPIDI CAIRONTES, THi QLIYEI  
hUPOMENONTES, THi PROSEUCHi PROSKARTEROUNTES,  13 TAIS CREIAIS  
[MNEIAIS] TWN hAGIWN KOINWNOUNTES, THN FILOXENIAN DIWKONTES.

The variant reading MNEIAIS for CREIAIS in Rom. 12:13 has been  
accepted by  K.Barth:1933 (Romans p.450 n. 2, changed his mind later?)  
T.Zahn (p. 551). MNEIAIS in Rom. 12:13 is taken to mean something like  
practical assistance/aid. Among the majority who reject this approach,  
several do so on the basis that no lexical semantic support can be  
found for this understanding of MNEIA. If they are correct then what  
about P.T.O'Brien's comments on MNEIA in Phil. 1:3?

Elizabeth Kline

On Oct 23, 2008, at 6:33 AM, Kimmo Huovila wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 22, 2008, Carl Conrad wrote:
>> This is, I fear, an old peeve of mine: the notion that an adnominal
>> genitive, even when attached to a verbal noun, has any number of
>> inherent nuanced distinctive possibilities in the mind of the Greek
>> speaker/writer. These nuanced distinctions exist only in the mind  
>> of a
>> translator who is not content with "mention of you" or "thought of
>> you" -- or, to put it even more simply, "you-thought." The Greek
>> construction MNEIA hUMWN doesn't in and of itself offer any hint of
>> how to go about analyzing the mind of the writer. We may look for
>> hints in the context, but indications are to be found only in the
>> context -- if there -- or not at all. Otherwise there are no  
>> resources
>> enabling us to peer inside Paul's head.
>
> Two opinions in response:
>
> 1) It is not primarily an issue of translation (even though it may  
> influence
> translation). Primarily it is an issue of understanding the  
> semantics of the
> Greek text. The issue is, how do you rank shift the noun phrase into  
> a clause?
>
> A Koine linguist might put it this way, with no reference to  
> translation:
> TIS ECEI MNEIAN PERI TINOS EN TWi GRAYAI TON PAULON 'MNEIA hUMWN'?  
> hO PAULOS
> MNHMONEUEI TOUS FILIPPHSIOUS H hOI FILIPPHSIOI TON PAULON?
>
> It is a matter of linguistic analysis of the Greek text.
>
> 2) While context is the most important (or perhaps even only)  
> indication,
> lexis and encyclopaedic knowledge have an influence. If a word  
> occurs much
> more often with subjective or objective genitive (of some types of  
> words),
> that tends to create an expectation in the mind of the native  
> speaker (if the
> difference in frequencies is big enough). In the mind of the native  
> listener,
> to offset that expectation requires stronger contextual indicators  
> than
> maintaining it.
>
> To illustrate in English, without knowing anything of the context,  
> do you feel
> that there is a natural interpretation (subjective or objective of- 
> phrase)
> which tends to be selected in the absence of contextual indicators  
> to the
> contrary? Partly, perhaps mostly or even only, it is a matter of  
> creating some
> mental, easily accessible context, but lexis does have an influence.
>
> (1) The love of God.
> (2) The love of the friend.
> (3) The love of money.
> (4) The throw of the ball.
> (5) The throw of that man.
> (6) The shooting of the target.
> (7) The shooting of the gun.
>
> Even when the communication happens in a shared context, the  
> speaker's and the
> listener's contexts may not be exactly the same. Therefore lexical and
> collocational cues may be important for the listener in trying to  
> construe
> parts of the speaker's context.
>
> MNEIA + genitive is overwhelmingly used with an objective genitive,  
> but we
> must still be careful not to read too much into that. Most genitives  
> with
> MNEIA are inanimate, and thus not good candidates for a subjective  
> genitive.
> I would like to analyze lots of examples with MNEIA + human genitive  
> to see
> if there is a clear preference for either type of genitive. I still  
> have
> hundreds of examples to go, but so far human genitives have been rare.
>
> Kimmo Huovila
> ---









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