[B-Greek] Heads in 1 Corinthians 11
Aaron Marshall
greekmeister1 at hotmail.com
Wed Nov 18 08:56:32 EST 2009
>>>>> Thanks for your responses. The question was raised for me a few months ago when I was reading through 1 Corinthians >and, without thinking about it, took KATA + genitive in an adversative sense (which I had thought was Paul's most frequent use >of the construction). I can see though that, as Mark says, the latter participle can't be qualifying the subject of the first >participle. This is helpful - thanks
Not to beat a dead horse here but I'm not sure you understand the main problem with your suggestion. The main reason it is incorrect is because understanding KATA KEPHALHS ECWN as "against having a head" means treating ECWN as a substantive and the object of the preposition. This is impossible because it is in the nominative case. It would have to be in the genitive case. Additionally I think KEPHALH would need to be in the accusative since it would then be the object of ECWN. If you already understand this then I apologize for belaboring the point.
Aaron
> Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:03:25 +0000
> From: atxmrm at nottingham.ac.uk
> To: lightmanmark at yahoo.com; cwconrad2 at mac.com
> CC: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Heads in 1 Corinthians 11
>
> Thanks for your responses. The question was raised for me a few months ago when I was reading through 1 Corinthians and, without thinking about it, took KATA + genitive in an adversative sense (which I had thought was Paul's most frequent use of the construction). I can see though that, as Mark says, the latter participle can't be qualifying the subject of the first participle. This is helpful - thanks
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Mark Lightman [mailto:lightmanmark at yahoo.com]
> Sent: Tue 17/11/2009 22:17
> To: Malcolm Matthew; Carl Conrad
> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Heads in 1 Corinthians 11
>
>
>
> --- On Tue, 11/17/09, Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Nov 17, 2009, at 2:02 PM, Matthew Malcolm wrote:
> > 1 Corinthians 11:4: Every man who prays or prophesies KATA KEPHALH ECHWN...
> >
> > I recognise that there are loads of questions about this passage, but I'm just wondering about one in particular: Would it be feasible (aside from contextual considerations) to understand this as "against having a head"? - The meaning of the sentence would thus be along the lines of "Every man who prays or prophecies as though having no head [i.e. Christ]..."
> >
> > I realise that it's common to understand the phrase as referring to a "covering coming down from the head" - and I'm quite open to such a reading. I'm simply wondering whether this other reading is even possible or whether it can be ruled out on the grounds of grammar or language usage.
>
> <Text: 1Cor. 11:4 ??? ???? ????????????? ? ?????????? ???? ??????? ???? ??????????? ??? ??????? ?????.
> [1Cor. 11:4 PAS ANHR PROSEUCOMENOS H PROFHTEUWN KATA KEFALHS ECWN KATAISCUNEI THN KEFALHN AUTOU.]
>
> The phrase is KATA KEFALHS ECWN; there's no way in the world that it could mean "against having a head." KEFALHS construes with the preposition KATA; KATA KEFALHS means "down from the head." The prepositional phrase KATA KEFALHS functions adverbially with the participle ECWN which will mean in this context, "wearing" or "carrying." Frankly I find it difficult to see how anyone insructed in basic Koine Greek could construe these words as meaning "against having a head.">
>
> Hi, Matthew,
>
> In other words, for the phrase to mean "against having a head" it would
> have to be KATA KEFALHN ECONTOS, but I doubt even this is intelligible
> Greek. What would one write if one meant this? PROSEUCOMENOS
> CWRIS KEFALHS, or maybe ENANTION KAFALHi.
>
> But your post does raise the question whether you can have a participle
> say in the nomnative, modfied by a preposition plus another particle in
> an oblique case, which still modifies the subject of the first participle.
> I would say no.
>
> Mark L
> FWSFOROS
>
>
>
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