[B-Greek] Margaret Sim on hINA (was Ephesians 5:33)

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Wed Jan 14 08:36:23 EST 2009


On Jan 11, 2009, at 7:30 PM, Michael Aubrey wrote:

> The best recent dealing with this question, is a 2006 dissertation:
>
> A Relevance Theoretic approach to the particle 'hina' in Koine Greek  
> by Margaret Gavin Sim
> supervised by Larry W Hurtado & Ronnie Cann.
>
> Here discussion specifically about an "imperatival iνα" is in  
> section 9.3.1.2 ‘Imperatival’ iνα on page  267, though she  
> references Ephesians 5.33 a number of times throughout her  
> dissertation. The entire work is downloadable here (see the PDF link  
> at the bottom):
>
> http://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/1395

I am especially grateful to Mike for calling attention to this  
dissertation. It is the very model of what a dissertation ought to be,  
a thorough and  judicious exploration  of a matter that desperately  
needed exploration, in this instance the range  of functions served by  
the particle/conjunction hINA (ἵνα) in the GNT, a matter that is  
not dealt with in a really adequate way in any of the major reference  
works that readers  of the GNT regularly consult. The textual corpus  
surveyed (as is all too uncommon in discussions of NT Greek usage) to  
contemporary non-biblical sources, both literary and  non-literary  
(Epictetus, for instance, as well as Dionysius of Halicarnassus and  
Josephus). The scholarly literature and grammars are assessed  
(including Caragounis' book on the development of Greek and the NT)  
and the perspective  is sufficiently diachronic to distinguish NT  
Koine usage from earlier and later usage of hINA. I am more than a  
little pleased that, despite the input of academic linguistics  
(Relevance Theory) into the analysis, the dissertation  is remarkably  
free from that gobbledygook or jargon that sometimes seems to be used  
by inmates of the Tower of Babel talking to each other. I've found one  
thing in particular that I was looking for: a judicious assessment of  
Caragounis' argument that hINA is actually used in a causal senses  
(meaning "because") in the GNT. I've found too a sensible discussion   
of the problem of hINA in the enigmatic Synoptic parallel passages on  
the reason why Jesus speaks in parables (Mark 4:10-12, Mt 13:10-15, Lk  
8:9-10 -- with a nice appreciation of the irony involved.


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






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