[B-Greek] Luke 2.25, 26 HN KECRHMATISMENON

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Fri Mar 13 06:40:07 EDT 2009


Mark Lightman egrapse
> (1)  Luke is imitating LXX style where simple parataxis with
> KAI's, as in Hebrew, can stand in for subordinate clauses
> with a range of meanings.  So you can coordinate these
> sentences as subordinate clauses temporally,
> in whatever order you want, or causally, or however the
> context indicates.

As Mark and Carl have correctly said, the relationship of
clauses joined by 'and' in this style needs to be deduced by
the reader, it is not marked by the language itself. That is
how Hebrew narrative works.

I would only add one point that affects how one reads Luke's
schizophrenic Greek style, primarily throughout the Gospel,
though somewhat evident in the first half of Acts:

It is not a fact that Luke is imitating the LXX here. That is the
current consensus of a majority of scholars. However, Lucan
scholarship continues to echo Dalman's assessment
from over a century ago that Luke's Egeneto+time+finite verb
structure is his own and that its alleged occurrence in Acts
'proves' that Luke was imitating the LXX.
The facts are different. Dalman was wrong.
The Hebrew EGENETO structure just
mentioned never occurs in Acts, only the more Greek
EGENETO + time + infinitive main clause. (Dalman's data
were wrong, he knew better, but it fit his worldview of  'no
Hebrew in functional use at the time', and 'Luke dependant
on Mark for all of these data') The "infinitive main clause"
structure is Luke's and also occurs in the Gospel (e.g. 3.21ff).
I can only conclude that the EGENETO+time+finite verb
is a source structure for Luke, never occurring in Acts despite
the EGENETO+time+'infinitive main clause' structure being
common in Acts, and reflects his willingness to preserve
some of his source material, though he certainly edits
and reformulates.
For more detail see my article on the Vineyard parable
in Notley et al, ed., Jesus Last Week, Brill, 2006,
especially the 59-page appendix of notes on
language questions and sources.

ERRWSQE
Randall Buth

--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth at gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
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