[B-Greek] Attraction of the Relative in Eph 2:10
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Mon Dec 14 04:45:33 EST 2009
One must exclude any passages taken from the Apocalypse from consideration of whether there is Semitic influence on the NT since it seems to have been deliberately written in a Semitizing style. Likewise, if a quotation or allusion to the LXX is under consideration that falls outside the purview of discussion as well since the LXX is translation Greek which at times attempts to slavishly follow the Hebrew. I again note that the onus lies on you to support your case that there is any considerable influence from a Semitic background on the NT. This cannot be done by simply referencing passages from the NT which seem to you be have a Semitic background. What is required is a diligent consideration of the non-canonical literature in Koine of the period which would be considered to not have Semitic influence showing that the features such as attraction are NOT TO BE FOUND in them.
george
gfsomsel
… search for truth, hear truth,
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
defend the truth till death.
- Jan Hus
_________
________________________________
From: "yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net" <yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net>
To: greek B-Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Mon, December 14, 2009 2:03:15 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Attraction of the Relative in Eph 2:10
I posted a version of this earlier, but it didn't go through. My apologies to the list if later you see two like this one.
On Dec 13, 2009, at 11:43 PM, George F Somsel wrote:
> You seem in this and in other posts to be obsessed with the possibility of Semitic influence. While there may be some such, I think it incumbent upon you to establish that this phenomenon is not similarly present in non-Semitic Greek of the period.
Well, "obsessed" might be overstated. Call me sensitive to bilingualism. It will make me feel better. Those who have spent many years in multilingual situations may tend to develop this ... obsession. Yet the tell-tale marks of the kind of difficulties those who must code-switch constantly can be striking. And, believe me, relative clauses are BEARS across languages. I have adapted some examples from Winer, Grammatik, p. 200-1 here that seem to indicate that going from Hebrew to Greek relative clauses could be a robin of fusses for them too.
I find the addition of the relative to clauses with αὐτός (or vice versa) quite a striking, perhaps even slavish, simulation of Hebrew. I think where the Hebrew relative ASHER only receives a precise specification in gender, number and case by means of a personal suffix often added to a preposition (such as B). Isn't this likely explanation for the rather odd sounding occurrence in Acts 15:17 ἐφ᾽οὕς ἐπικέκληται τὸ ὄνομά μου ἐπ αὐτούς EF hOUS EPIKEKLHTAI TO ONOMA MOU EP AUTOUS (a citation from Amos 9:12 following the LXX which has many other examples). I think “semitic” influence here would be fairly clear, since it is a quotation of the LXX, the epitome of semitic influence on a Greek text. How about Rev 17:9 ἑπτὰ ὄρη ὅπου ἡ γυνὴ κἀθηται ἐπ᾽αὐτῶν hEPTA ORH hOPOU hH GUNH KAQHTAI EP AUTWN (ὅπου cannot possibly = “the place where”, but = “the seven
hills where the woman sits upon them,” an example of solecism.) Again, “semitic” influence seems clear to me. In the NT there are simple cases like 1 Pet. 2:24 οὗ τῷ μώλωπι αὐτοῦ ἰάθητε hOU TWi MWLWPI AUTOU IAQHTE (Isaiah 53:5 doesn't have οὗ). Nestle-Aland, following Wescott and Hort, omit αὐτοῦ in this passage however, one wonders whether the Byzantine reading is a result of semitic influence or LXX harmonization, if these can be distinguished. It would be a matter of the intention and language background of the scribe. So that is moot.) But there is Rev. 13:8 οὗ οὐ γέγραπται τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ τῆς ζωῆς, hOU OU GEGRAPTAI TO ONOMA AUTOU EN TWi BIBLIWi THS ZWHS. in addition there is Mk 7:25 (N.B. ἧς ... αὐτῆς): ἀλλ᾿ εὐθὺς ἀκούσασα γυνὴ περὶ αὐτοῦ, ἧς εἶχεν τὸ θυγάτριον
αὐτῆς πνεῦμα ἀκάθαρτον, ALL EUQUW AKOUSASA GUNH PERI AUTOU hHS EICEN TO QUGATRION AUTHS PNEUMA AKAQARTON and Rev. 20:8 (ὧν) ὧν ὁ ἀριθμὸς αὐτῶν ὡς ἡ ἄμμος τῆς θαλάσσης hWN hO ARiQMOS AUTWN hWS hH AMMOS QALASSHS , and there are:
7:2οἷς ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς ἀδικῆσαι τὴν γῆν hOIS EDOQH AUTOIS ADIKHSAI
7:9ὃν ἀριθμῆσαι αὐτὸν οὐδεὶς ἐδύνατο hON ARIQMHSAI AUTON OUDEIS EDUNATO
3:8 ἣν οὐδεὶς δύναται κλεῖσαι αὐτήν, hHN OUDEIS DUNATAI KLEISAI AUTHN
further Rev. 13:12 where οὗ and αὐτοῦ cannot possibly refer to 2 different substantives:
οὗ εθεραπευθη η πληγη του θανατου αὐτοῦ, hOU EQERAPUQH hH PLHGH TOU QANATOU AUTOU
Mt 3:12 = L 3:12 οὗ τὸ πτύον ἐν τῇ χειρὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ διακαθαριεῖ τὴν ἅλωνα αὐτοῦ hOU TO PTUON EN THi CEIRI AUTOU KA DIAKAQRIEI THN hALWNA AUTOU (N.B. "ἐν τῇ χειρὶ" already means "in his hand" so, it seems that αὐτοῦ as a case uneccesarily reinforcing [from a Greek point of view] the reference of and οὗ. αὐτοῦ is "his," but referring only to the only winnowing fork not the hand.). Looks like semitic influence, but you may have a different take on this.
Mc 1:7 = L 3:16 οὗ οὐκ εἰμὶ ἱκανὸς κύψας λῦσαι τὸν ἱμάντα τῶν ὑποδημάτων αὐτοῦ for which Mt 3:11 has simply: οὗ οὐκ εἰμὶ ἱκανὸς τὰ ὑποδήματα βαστάσαι).
ASHER in Hebrew constructions is used in other ways, and the analogue to what I have given above is Mk 13:19 οἵα οὐ γέγονεν τοιαύτη ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς κτίσεως and the adverbial relative Rev. 12:6 ὅπου ἔχει ἐκεῖ τόπον ἡτοιμασμένον ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ and then
12:14 ὅπου τρέφεται ἐκεῖ καιρὸν καὶ καιροὺς καὶ ἥμισυ καιροῦ ἀπὸ προσώπου τοῦ ὄφεως as well as the correlative pronoun και τα ιματια αυτου εγενετο στιλβοντα λευκα λιαν οια γναφευς επι της γης ου δυναται ουτως λευκαναι Mc 9:3.
In contrast to these cases which seem to reflect an unnecessary strengthening of the correlative or adverbial relative on the analogy of ASHER, it seems, to me at least, that in Gal 2:10 ὃ καὶ ἐσπούδασα αὐτὸ τοῦτο ποιῆσαι the relative followed by αὐτὸ is not semitic, but a marked emphasis done in a very Greek way and in 1 Pet 3:24 ὃς τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν αὐτὸς ἀνήνεγκεν the αὐτός means "himself," semantically quite distinct from a case where αὐτός functions to unnecessarily specify the relative. So, I think it appropriate to ask whether E. 2:10 οἷς προητοίμασεν is really or not attraction to the antecedent or a case in which the relative is again unnecessarily strengthened by the pronoun in the prepositional phrase ἐν αὐτοῖς on the analogy of the pronominal suffix in Hebrew.
Yancy Smith, PhD
yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net
Y.W.Smith at tcu.edu
yancy at wbtc.com
5636 Wedgworth Road
Fort Worth, TX 76133
817-361-7565
---
B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
B-Greek mailing list
B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list