[B-Greek] Attraction of the Relative in Eph 2:10
Iver Larsen
iver_larsen at sil.org
Mon Dec 14 06:16:20 EST 2009
----- Original Message -----
From: <yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net>
To: "greek B-Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: 14. december 2009 12:03
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
While it is very reasonable to draw in Semitic influence in Revelation and
Matthew plus parallels and also in OT quotes, I don't think it is reasonable to
suggest it for Eph 2:10. In addition, the EN AUTOIS is part of the hINA clause
governed by PERIPATHSWMEN and can hardly strengthen a relative pronoun in a
different clause. There are interesting textual variants in some of your
passages above, and it is fun to see how Greek scribes have corrected the
awkward Semitic Greek. Those are not relative attractions, though.
According to BDF relative attraction is also found in Classical Greek, and Eph
2:10 looks like a classical example of it.
Iver Larsen
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