[B-Greek] M. Sim dissertation on hINA (was hINA in Jn 9:3, 11:4)

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sat Feb 7 07:15:16 EST 2009


On Feb 4, 2009, at 10:23 AM, Carl Conrad wrote:

> I would agree with Elizabeth that FANERWQHi IN Jn 9:3 ought to be
> considered telic rather than consecutive, pace Iver. I did not read
> through the whole dissertation but rather looked at several sections
> of it. I am surprised, indeed rather shocked, that she used BGAD
> rather than BDAG when she did her research, considering that she did
> review what Chrys Caragounis had to say about hINA in his
> "Development ..." book, which is much more recent than the publication
> of BDAG (I was interested to see that she questions (as do I)
> Caragounis' claim (based on Apollonius Dyscolus) that hINA is causal
> and should be understood as meaning "because" in Mk 4:12 and Rom 5:20
>
> Mark 4:11 καὶ ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς· ὑμῖν τὸ
> μυστήριον δέδοται τῆς βασιλείας  
> τοῦ
> θεοῦ· ἐκείνοις δὲ τοῖς ἔξω ἐν
> παραβολαῖς τὰ πάντα γίνεται,
>  12 	ἵνα βλέποντες βλέπωσιν καὶ μὴ
> ἴδωσιν, καὶ ἀκούοντες ἀκούωσιν καὶ
> μὴ συνιῶσιν, μήποτε ἐπιστρέψωσιν
> καὶ ἀφεθῇ αὐτοῖς. [KAI ELEGEN AUTOIS: hUMIN TO
> MUSTHRION DEDOTAI THS BASILEIAS TOU QEOU; EKEINOIS DE TOIS EXW EN
> PARABOLAIS TA PANTA GINETAI, 12 hINA BLEPONTES BLEPWSIN KAI MH IDWSIN,
> KAI AKOUONTES AKOUWSIN KAI MH SUNIWSIN, MHPOTE EPISTREYWSIN KAI AFEQHi
> AUTOIS]
>
> Romans 5:20 νόμος δὲ παρεισῆλθεν, ἵνα
> πλεονάσῃ τὸ παράπτωμα· οὗ δὲ
> ἐπλεόνασεν ἡ ἁμαρτία,
> ὑπερεπερίσσευσεν ἡ χάρις, [NOMOS DE
> PAREISHLQEN, hINA PLEONASHi TO PARAPTWMA; hOU DE EPLEONASEN hH
> hAMARTIA, hUPEREPERISSEUSEN hH CARIS.]
>
> I think most interpreters do indeed understand hINA in these two
> passages as telic, and so do I. Of course the interpretation of Mark
> 4:10-12 does indeed puzzle interpreters, some understanding it in
> ironic terms as I do, others literally as what Jesus intended to
> affirm. Reading that hINA as causal, however, appears to cut the knot
> rather than untie it: "everything comes in riddles to them BECAUSE
> they see without seeing and hear without understanding, so as not to
> repent and be forgiven."
>
> I need to go back and work through the whole dissertation and try to
> understand the way she differentiates hINA from hOTI as introducing
> representations of what is spoken or urged. I do think that BDAG has
> got hINA pretty much right, but my own guess is that hINA +
> subjunctive clauses in Vulgar Koine (as opposed to the literary
> language) functions much as does the infinitive -- in a variety of  
> not-
> so-readily distinguishable variant functions.

After reading more closely through Sim's dissertation, which deals  
with both hINA and hOTI, I am all the more impressed with it. I have  
my reservations about a few items, but I could wish in vain that  
dissertations might generally be so well-written and actually make a  
solid contribution to the understanding of an important matter. Maybe  
doctoral candidates should simply write a good paper to illustrate  
capacity for research and postpone the real dissertation for three  
decades.

There are some nit-picking criticisms I'd offer, although use  of BGAD  
rather than BDAG is scarcely excusable; others:
(1) although I'm pretty satisfied that she's essentially right about  
the way ἵνα and ὅτι function as structural markers to preset  
the reader/listener expectation of the clause that follows, with the  
distinction between factual clause and potential clause, it seems to  
me that ἵνα is  not completely empty semantically -- it  is a  
relative adverb of place (correlative to τίνα, a sort of third- 
declension equivalent to the relative adverbs οὗ and oἷ which are  
correlative with ποῦ and ποῖ;
(2) Then there's ἵνα τί, often spelled as one word ἱνατί,  
almost exactly equivalent to French 'pourquoi' = 'pour quoi.'
(3) In her diachronic account  of ἵνα, she argues that the orators  
show the inroads of ἵνα over ὅπως ανδ ὡς in comparison  
with Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Aristophanes -- but it's standard  
practice to distinguish usage  in poets from that in prose writers  
since poets tend to use a more archaizing vocabulary;
(4) Finally, she is careful to avoid using Hellenistic authors who  
might be influenced by Semitic patterns (she won't use Josephus on  
grounds that  he claims to have written in Aramaic originally) -- she  
sticks with Polybius and Epictetus, but  in fact Polybius and  
Epictetus lived in Rome (as did Josephus in  his later years); I think  
that the Koine usage of ἵνα is very closely parallet to the usage  
of the Latin particle 'ut' used with the subjunctive;
(5) Unless I've missed it (I still haven't finished reading through  
the whole of the thesis), she does discuss usage of ἵνα + subj. in  
independent clauses but doesn't discuss the usages of ἵνα with the  
indicative.
(6) And, of course, there are those instances we've discussed on list  
where we think she is wrong NOT to discern a telic usage of ἵνα.

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






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