[B-Greek] AITEW as "Demand"?

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Mon Sep 14 15:14:18 EDT 2009


On Sep 14, 2009, at 9:17 AM, George F Somsel wrote:

> One of the glosses for αἰτέω [AITEW] is indeed "demand"

George has given a good answer.

Every lexical reference[1] I checked had "demand" as a gloss for AITEW  
with one exception Cunliffe (Homeric). I started with Louw & Nida to  
see what other words were in the same semantic domain. ἐρωτάω  
ERWTAW, ζητέω ZHTEW, δέομαι DEOMAI.

Under AITEW LSJ has "to demand satisfaction from one for . . , Hdt. 
8.114",

Louw & Nida "33.163 AITEW  to ask for with urgency, even to the point  
of demanding — ‘to ask for, to demand, to plead for." It is  
interesting that under 33.163 there are no citations that require the  
gloss "demand", with a possible exception, 1Pet 3:15 often cited as an  
example, but I don't find it compelling. The question is, who fills  
the agent slot (argument) for AITEW? Since 1Peter 3:15 is a general  
remark, the agent slot isn't filled so we don't know what sort or  
authority the agent has relative to the recipient of the request.

The notion of urgency (Louw & Nida 33.163) does not equate to the  
notion of demand. A demand implies a certain relationship between the  
rights and authority of two parties involved, a relationship which  
[IMHO] is impossible when ANQRWPOS is the agent of AITEW and QEON is  
the recipient of the request. This is an example of doing lexical  
semantics within a theological framework, something we all do, but it  
makes the b-greek moderators upset if we do it on list.

A couple of examples in Luke 12:20,48
.
Luke 12:20 εἶπεν δὲ αὐτῷ ὁ θεός· ἄφρων,  
ταύτῃ τῇ νυκτὶ τὴν ψυχήν σου  
ἀπαιτοῦσιν ἀπὸ σοῦ· ἃ δὲ  
ἡτοίμασας, τίνι ἔσται;
.
LUKE 12:20 EIPEN DE AUTWi hO QEOS· AFRWN, TAUTHi THi NUKTI THN YUCHN  
SOU APAITOUSIN APO SOU· hA DE hHTOIMASAS, TINI ESTAI;
.
Luke 12:48 ὁ δὲ μὴ γνούς, ποιήσας δὲ ἄξια  
πληγῶν δαρήσεται ὀλίγας. παντὶ δὲ ᾧ  
ἐδόθη πολύ, πολὺ ζητηθήσεται παρ᾿  
αὐτοῦ, καὶ ᾧ παρέθεντο πολύ,  
περισσότερον αἰτήσουσιν αὐτόν.
.
  LUKE 12:48 hO DE MH GNOUS, POIHSAS DE AXIA PLHGWN DARHSETAI OLIGAS.  
PANTI DE hWi EDOQH POLU, POLU ZHTHQHSETAI PAR᾿ AUTOU, KAI hWi  
PAREQENTO POLU, PERISSOTERON AITHSOUSIN AUTON.
.
Note the agent in both of these is QEOS, explicit in v.20 implicit in  
v.48. Here we see the agent slot filled with one who has the authority  
to make demands and the recipient is one who is required to submit to  
these demands.
.



Elizabeth Kline

[1] LS (intermed.), LSJ, EDNT, Danker (Short), BDAG, Louw & Nida,  
Grimm-Thayer, Cunliffe, Woodhouse.

postscript: The most interesting article was found in Grimm-Thayer. It  
is always a good idea to compare Grimm-Thayer against more recent work.




More information about the B-Greek mailing list