[B-Greek] basic and advanced refs. on spousal ANHR/GUNAIKOS without possessive markers

Steven Cox stevencox_backonbgreek at yahoo.co.uk
Sun Jul 5 21:54:09 EDT 2009


Thanks Carl. I suppose the 1st request does basically represent laziness. It's obviously a lot easier to just photocopy something (copyright permitting). But if I do draft an A4 I guess it'll be okay to submit it to B-Greek for criticism?


Nevertheless the 2nd request is something I couldn't do myself without a Hezekiah-style turning back of the sundial. The Blue Ridge example illustrates the general  "her man" is still a
genitive/possessive, as distinct from a Provencal peasant saying "la
femme" where it should be "sa femme". But it does illustrate how subtle knowledge of the idiom would be to pick this up. Short of doing a TLG search on 100s of occurences of ANHR GUNAIKOS together and having to take time to weigh the context on each, which would be someone's PhD thesis not a casual check. 

Maybe then someone can recommend a Hellenistic text or 2 which would be analgous to Paul in flitting between man-woman and husband-wife, so I at least have 1 or 2 documents to benchmark Paul with on this?
S








--- On Sun, 5/7/09, Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com> wrote:

From: Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] basic and advanced refs. on spousal ANHR/GUNAIKOS without possessive markers
To: "Steven Cox" <stevencox_backonbgreek at yahoo.co.uk>
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Sunday, 5 July, 2009, 12:46 PM


On Jul 4, 2009, at 9:05 PM, Steven Cox wrote:

> 
> 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.

I'm reminded of a recent experience wherein our 91-year-old uncle told us he'd been pondering who he could trust to carry out a chore about which he wasn't comfortable  with his immediate family; he said, "It came to me in the night: "Velma and her man." "Her man" is a rather quaint old-timey expression one might hear in these backwoods sections of the Blue Ridge where I have heard people use "holp" as a past tense of "help." There's no question as to what he intended by that expression, "her man" -- but

Steven, you've made your question about as clear as possible. Since you know what kind of analysis or analytical tool you want, I suggest you go out and prepare it yourself.
We've had discussions over the years about when GUNH and ANHR should be understood as "woman" and "man" and when they should be understood as "wife" and "husband." I may be naive, but I doubt very much that the question you're asking can be resolved to the satisfaction of every interpreter of NT texts where the right way to take those words is in question. On the other hand, I don't think that the convolutions of possessive pronoun and "man" in the lyrics of "Franky and Johnny" have much to do with the institution of lawful wedded marriage: "He was her man, but he done her wrong."

As a vehicle of communication language depends very much on an understanding between speaker/writer and listener/reader. Unless the speaker/writer seriously endeavors to make himself/herself absolutely clear by phrasing what is said with great precision, there will always be the possibility that the listener/reader will misunderstand an ambiguous expession. I personally think there are numerous passages in the Greek NT where the author has not taken pains to make his intent perfectly clear, for the simple reason that HE knows what he means and he expects YOU to know what he means.


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






      


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