[B-Greek] Luke 8:32 Herd of hIKANOS Pigs
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Wed Jun 30 20:02:16 EDT 2010
On Jun 30, 2010, at 3:15 PM, Tom Moore wrote:
> Ἦν δὲ ἐκεῖ ἀγέλη χοίρων ἱκανῶν { βοσκομένων ♦ βοσκομένη } ἐν τῷ ὄρει· καὶ { παρεκάλουν ♦ παρεκάλεσαν } αὐτὸν ἵνα ἐπιτρέψῃ αὐτοῖς εἰς ἐκείνους εἰσελθεῖν. Καὶ ἐπέτρεψεν αὐτοῖς.
>
> HN DE EKEI AGELH COIRWN hIKANWN BOSKOMENH EN TWi OREI KAI PAREKALESAN AUTON hINA EPITREYHi AUTOIS EIS EKEINOUS EISELQEIN KAI EPETREYEN AUTOIS
>
> This may be a trivial question, but how ought we translate AGELH COIRWN hIKANWN? ("A herd of a not insignificant number of pigs"?)
>
> I'm trying to get a sense of hIKANOS in this passage. Why might the author have chosen hIKANOS modifying COIRWN: why not modify AGELH instead ("a sizable herd of pigs"), or why not rather just use POLUS ("a herd of many pigs")?
Ι think this is a more-or-less colloquial usage, sort of like "lots of" in English. See BDAG s.v. hIKANOS 4." in relatively large numbers, many, quite a few"
What I find curious here is that Luke is the one who seems to use the more colloquial adjective. Compare
Mark 5:11 ἀγέλη χοίρων μεγάλη βοσκομένη [AGELH COIRWN MEGALH BOSKOMEN·]
Matthew 8:30 ἀγέλη χοίρων πολλῶν βοσκομένη [AGELH COIRWN POLLWN BOSKOMENH]
Luke 8:32 ἀγέλη χοίρων ἱκανῶν βοσκομένη [AGELH COIRWN hIKANWN BOSKOMENH ]
But it appears that this adjective hIKANOS is a Lucan favorite; it is found much more frequently in Luke and Acts than elsewhere in the GNT. Perhaps my sense of the adjective being colloquial is wrong.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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