[B-Greek] Paul as Stylist
Bart Ehrman
behrman at email.unc.edu
Sat Jul 3 12:27:34 EDT 2010
Colleagues,
Apologies if this issue has been broached on the list before.
Marius Reiser, in his article Paulus als Stilist (SEÅ 66 [2001] 157) tries
to explain Pauls unusual Greek, characterized by hyperbata (which he
defines specifically as forms of parentheses), anacoloutha , and incomplete
sentences, by claiming that it is representative of spoken rather than
written Greek. Moreover, he insists that Paul is the first author of record
to have written texts as if he were speaking them (different from anything
in the papyri he insists; different from dictated letters; different from
speeches of rhetoricians; and so on).
As he puts it:
Die ungefeilte Sprache des Paulus hat nämlich etwas auf das Papier
gebracht, was vor ihm niemand je zu Papier bringen wollte: gesprochene
Sprache; nicht unbeholfenes Schreiben in ungefügen Sätzen, wie es zahllose
Papyri bieten, sondern gesprochene Sprache eines kompetenten Sprechers mit
den typischen Erscheinungen der spontanen Rede. (emphasis his)
Id be very interested in any reactions/responses to this claim. (For
what its worth Armin Baum uses it to explain why the Greek of the Pastorals
which he takes to be authentic -- differs from that of the undisputed
Paulines: the Pastorals were planned as written texts and are not
Paul-as-if-speaking. But that view, I think, is less relevant to the NT
Greek list. Im interested in the stylistic claim of Reiser in se). Many
thanks,
n Bart Ehrman
Bart D. Ehrman
James A. Gray Professor
Department of Religious Studies
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
http://www.bartdehrman.com
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