[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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