[B-Greek] The object of METATIQEMAI APO (was "Etc., etc., without apologies to David Letterman")

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sat Jun 13 12:49:13 EDT 2009


On Jun 13, 2009, at 10:03 AM, George F Somsel wrote:

>
> Without seeming to realize what he was doing, Iver has made my  
> point.  While he finally states that "The allegiance they are being  
> moved from is 'the one who
> called you to live in grace' ", before he does so he acknowledges  
> that "Paul seems to credit the false teachers with the activity of  
> turning the Galatians from the true gospel to a
> different 'gospel'."  In order for this to be the case, the  
> understood element in the sentence must be τὸ  
> εὐαγγέλιον TO EUAGGELION.  The sentence as understood  
> would then read
>
> Θαυμάζω ὅτι οὕτως ταχέως  
> μετατίθεσθε ἀπὸ [τοῦ εὐαγγελίου]  
> τοῦ καλέσαντος ὑμᾶς ἐν χάριτι  
> [Χριστοῦ]εἰς ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον, 7ὃ  
> οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλο, εἰ μή τινές εἰσιν  
> οἱ ταράσσοντες ὑμᾶς καὶ θέλοντες  
> μεταστρέψαι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ  
> Χριστοῦ.
>
> QAUMAZW hOTI hOUTWS TAXEWS METATIQESQE APO [TOU EUAGGELIOU] TOU  
> KALESANTOS hUMAS EN XARITI [XRISTOU] EIS hETERON EUAGGELION, 7 hO  
> OUK ESTIN ALLO, EI MH TINES EISIN hOI TARASSONTES hUMAS KAI QELONTES  
> METASTREYAI TO EUAGGELION TOU XRISTOU.

The way you put it here does make a lot more sense than what we had  
thought you were contending previously. But one point of clarification  
here, George -- since this is where we had difficulty with your  
argument the first time around: do you really understand TOU  
KALESANTOS as genitive neuter singular in agreement with your implicit  
TOU EUAGGELIOU, or would you understand TOU KALESANTOS as gen. masc.  
sg. referring to God or Christ, the genitive phrase dependent on the  
implicit TOU EUAGGELIOU? Does your interpretation depend on the gospel  
message itself as the thing (rather than person) actually performing  
the call?

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


>
> It must be noted that it is μετατίθεσθε ἀπὸ  
> METATIQESQE APO [X] εἰς ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον EIS  
> hETERON EUAGGELION.  The two must be coordinant.  One does not  
> forsake Caesar to serve a . . . banana!  Note the description of the  
> territory of the Canaanites in Gen 10.19 [LXX]
>
> καὶ ἐγένοντο τὰ ὅρια τῶν Χαναναίων  
> ἀπὸΣιδῶνος ἕως ἐλθεῖν εἰςΓεραρα  
> καὶ Γάζαν
>
>
> KAI EGENONTO TA ORIA TWN XANANAIWN APO SIDWNOS hEWS ELQEIN EIS  
> GERARA KAI GAZAN
>
> Here SIDWNOS, GERARA and GAZAN are settlements.  We don't see  
> settlements listed with mules to indicate the limits of the territory.
>
>  george
> gfsomsel
>
>
> … search for truth, hear truth,
> learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
> defend the truth till death.
>
>
> - Jan Hus
> _________
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Iver Larsen <iver_larsen at sil.org>
> To: B Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2009 4:23:00 AM
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] The object of METATIQEMAI APO (was "Etc.,  
> etc., without apologies to David Letterman")
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Carl Conrad" <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
> To: "Mark Lightman" <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>
> Cc: "B Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: 12. juni 2009 23:35
> Subject: [B-Greek] The object of METATIQEMAI APO (was "Etc., etc.,  
> without
> apologies to David Letterman")
>
>
>>
>> On Jun 12, 2009, at 1:32 PM, Mark Lightman wrote:
>>
>>> --- On Wed, 6/10/09, George F Somsel <gfsomsel at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> <5.  What does the object of METATIQHMI in the middle,
>>>   the end, the beginning or the active or passive have to do
>>>   with the price of eggs in Outer Mongolia?>
>>>
>>> KALESANTOS is the object of METATIQHMAI.  If you think
>>> the subject of KALESANTOS is a thing (gospel) not a person
>>> (God,) you would do well to see how often METATIQHMAI APO
>>> plus the gen takes a thing, how often a person.  Again, all the
>>> examples I saw were things.  Since your theory is interesting on
>>> the one hand and utterly devoid of support on the other hand, I
>>> would think it would be worth it for you to look this up.  I agree
>>> that all things being equal, in "APO X EIS Y," if Y is a thing, and
>>> X is unknown,
>>> we could assume that X is a thing.  But it's your crack pot theory.
>>> You should do the work.  Maybe you could get to it after you finish
>>> all 26 volumes of the Warren Report.  :)
>>
>> The text under discussion, lest it be forgotten, is Gal. 1:6:
>> Θαυμάζω ὅτι οὕτως ταχέως
>> μετατίθεσθε ἀπὸ τοῦ καλέσαντος
>> ὑμᾶς ἐν χάριτι [Χριστοῦ] εἰς  
>> ἕτερον
>> εὐαγγέλιον, ...
>> QAUMAZW hOTI hOUTWS TACEWS METATIQESQE APO TOU KALESANTOS hUMAS EN
>> CARITI {CRISTOU} EIS hETERON EUAGGELION, ...
>>
>> It would appear that questionable syntactic analysis is infectious.
>> METATIQEMAI is the middle of METATIQHMI. Ordinarily METATIQEMAI is
>> understood as an intransitive verb with the sense "change  
>> allegiance."
>> BDAG s.v. METATIQHMI 3 seems to understand it thus. It construes
>> regularly with an APO + genitive of the person(s) or thing(s) from
>> which one switches allegiance. It does seem strange, however, to  
>> speak
>> of the object of the preposition APO as the object of METATIQESQE in
>> Gal 1:6.
>
> Semantically speaking, "put" and "give" are the basic trivalent  
> verbs. The full
> set of arguments for "put" is Agent, Patient and Location. For  
> METATIQHMI the
> META indicates a shift from one location, position or allegiance to  
> another. The
> MP form in Gal 1:6 could be understood as middle, in which case the  
> Agent and
> Patient are co-referential. I think it is more likely to be passive  
> here, i.e.
> Agent and Patient are not co-referential, because Paul seems to  
> credit the false
> teachers with the activity of turning the Galatians from the true  
> gospel to a
> different "gospel". In that case, these teachers are the implicit  
> agents, the
> patient (subject) is "you-plural" expressed by the verb ending.  
> There is no
> grammatical object. The allegiance they are being moved from is "the  
> one who
> called you to live in grace" (I consider CRISTOU to be a misunderstood
> addition). The new allegiance is to the "different gospel" (and to  
> the people
> who brought it).







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