[B-Greek] verb root in John 1:29
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Mon Jul 13 15:03:04 EDT 2009
On Jul 13, 2009, at 1:56 PM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:
>
> On Jul 13, 2009, at 7:17 AM, Pastor wrote:
>
>> On my blog I am working through John trying to do "somewhat daily"
>> parsing and translating. Today I was working on John 1:29 where John
>> the
>> Baptist says, "Behold, the Lamb of God..." John uses the verb*
>> ???**(IDE). *I found it parsed differently by 2 online sites. One
>> uses
>> ???? (hORAW) as the root, and the other uses ???? (EIDW).
>
>
>
> John 1:29 Τῇ ἐπαύριον βλέπει τὸν
> Ἰησοῦν
> ἐρχόμενον πρὸς αὐτὸν καὶ λέγει·
> ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ὁ αἴρων τὴν
> ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου.
>
> JOHN 1:29 THi EPAURION BLEPEI TON IHSOUN ERCOMENON PROS AUTON KAI
> LEGEI· IDE hO AMNOS TOU QEOU hO AIRWN THN hAMARTIAN TOU KOSMOU.
> Here IDE functions as an interjection. It takes the form of the
> imperative of EIDW. EIDON is used for aorist forms of hORAW or hORAW
> is used for present and perfect forms of EIDON. There are historical
> issues here, Carl is an expert so I will not attempt to address them.
One of the more irritating features of Greek lexicography is the
listing of "lemma" --the reference form -- of verbs by forms that
either have never appeared in any extant Greek texts or that became
obsolete very early. Randall Buth in particular has argued that verbs
ought to be lemmatized with infinitives of the tense- and voice-form
generally seen in standard usage. We've also discussed a hypothetical
lexicon for Hellenistic Greek with definitions set forth in
Hellenistic Greek; that would necessarily involve, I believe, useful
information regarding both cognates and differentiations of roughly
synonymous verbs such as BLEPW, hORAW, EIDON, OYOMAI, OIDA, etc., etc.
If you look up EIDW in LSJ, you'll find:
"εἴδω [EIDW], no Act. pres. in use, ὁράω [hORAW] being used:
—"
You ought to expect to find EIDON, but you won't find it. You ought to
expect to find OIDA, and you do, but the entry says, "οἶδα [OIDA],
v. εἴδω [EIDW] B."
One of the reasons that Smyth's grammar is so much more valuable than
any Hellenistic or NT grammar I personally know of is that it contains
a lengthy appendix with a compendious listing of all ancient Geek
verbs (those at least that appear in Greek literaure down through the
earlier Hellenistic era):
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0007%3Apart%3D5
= http://tinyurl.com/kr62j7
It is really very much worth one's while to spend some time perusing
these listings as one has time to do so. If one has taken the time to
learn something of ancient Greek phonology (also amply set forth in
Smyth's grammar), then the information provided in the verb listing
will be all the more revealing. I've learned most of what I know about
*EIDW from Smyth.
The verb shows forms derived from vowel gradation of EI/OI/I of a root
beginning with digamma (f) and ending in D: fEID/fOID/fID; it is
related to the Latin root vid- (the verb videre, "see") and to English
"wit", "wisdom", and Elizabethan English "wist" in Luke 2:49 "wist ye
not that I must be about my Father’s business?"
In Koine Greek the relevant forms are the aorist EIDON (originlly
EfIDON from root 'fID') and perfect-tense OIDA from root 'fOID' which
also uses the root EID- (fEID) in the non-indicative forms. Older
Greek has a present middle EIDOMAI which means "look like" or "appear."
It's somewhat curious that Hellenistic Greek still uses both an active
aorist imperative IDE and a middle aorist imperative IDOU. IDOU seems
more a demonstrative adverb or interjection calling atttention to
something: "Hey!" like French "voici" and "voilá", whereas IDE/IDETE
retains the stronger verbal notion, "see, perceive, take note of."
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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