[B-Greek] basic and advanced refs. on spousal ANHR/GUNAIKOS without possessive markers
Steven Cox
stevencox_backonbgreek at yahoo.co.uk
Sat Jul 4 21:05:39 EDT 2009
Hello all,
I was going to entitle this [pdf needed on when "la femme" means "sa femme" in Greek?] but decided that was probably a bit un-Bgreek :)
This is actually two requests :
1. a good reference for a simple set of rules for when to translate "man"/"woman", when to translate as "husband"/wife. Ideally this would deal separately and simply with the various forms of possessive, genitive, IDIOS, etc. and be of a level where I could provide it to Bible students who might have some basic knowledge of French "la femme" vs. "sa femme", Spanish "mujer" vs. "su mujer", but know no Greek beyond Strong's numbers :).
So I basically need a 1 page handout that I can use at a class to demonstrate that ESV NRSV NIV etc. translators' decisions on "man"/"woman" vs. "husband"/wife" aren't done on a coin-toss. And shouldn't be undone on a coin-toss either.
2. an advanced study, preferably TLG based, on the use/absence of such clear possessive, genitive, etc. markers for ANHR and GUNAIKOS in Hellenistic period texts where (for example) in standard French, German, Spanish we'd expect them.
This basically is for my own use - occasionally in French, German, Spanish you come across "la femme" "das Weib" "der Mann" etc. used without possessives but clearly from context meaning a spouse: "[su] mujer" "[seine] Frau" etc. Such uses tend in French, German, to be either archaic or rural, dialect, but that appears not to be the case from the NT usage, where 1Co7 (for example) shows that Paul is far more inclined to drop the possessive, genitive markers once the possessive context has been established.
So I guess basically what I'm looking for is a benchmarking of Paul's dropping of strict possessive/genitive markers for "husband"/"wife" compared to the 'best' pagan Hellenistic writers. Did all writers of the period do it, or is it, for example, a 'Semiticism'? This question sounds like something someone from Sheffield must have written a paper on, but a cursory search failed to find anything.
Many thanks
S.
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