[B-Greek] Fear of fear - 1Pe 3:6
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sun May 2 05:16:55 EDT 2010
On May 2, 2010, at 1:01 AM, Oun Kwon wrote:
> Thank Carl.
>
> That helps lot.
>
> I am a little disappointed by the lack of depth treatment by BDAG on
> this word of NT hapax.
Well, it may appear only 1x in the GNT, but it's hardly that rare a word in Koine Greek.
Two further notes:
(1) I was contacted off-list by a list-member suggesting that this is what traditional grammar refers to as an"internal accusative." That's true; the more common form of that is what's traditionally called a "cognate accusative" such as SPONDAS SPENDEIN: "pour pourings (libations)". As you suggested earlier, "fear a fear" is in fact what's hinted at here, the difference being that's it's not a BIG fear (as if it were FOBOUMENAI FOBON) but "the least little fear" (FOBOUMENAI PTOHSIN).
(2) I remember a Greek "definition" of CRONOS and KAIROS that went something like this: CRONOS ESTIN EN hWi POLLOI KAIROI, KAIROS ESTIN EN hWi OU POLUS CRONOS.
I don't think there's really anything wrong with the BDAG accounting; it points to relevant extra-biblical information bearing on the usage. I do think, however, that it's often useful in the case of a relatively rare word to consult LSJ in addition to the entry in BDAG.
CWC
> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 7:37 PM, Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com> wrote:
>> On Apr 30, 2010, at 7:05 PM, Oun Kwon wrote:
>>> 1Pe 3:6b
>>>
>>> hHS EGENHQHTE TEKNA AGAQOPOIOUSAI
>>> KAI MH FOBOUMENAI MHDEMIAN PTOHSIN
>>>
>>> It is hard to see what the phrase μὴ φοβούμεναι μηδεμίαν πτόησιν is
>>> trying to tell. (BDAG p. 895 PTOHSIS gives several glosses -
>>> 'terrifying' 'intimidation' 'fear' 'terror'.)
>>> Most English translations do not help much, while some do smooth it over.
>>>
>>> Is it possible understand this phrase something like 'fear of fear'?
>>
>> I don't find it in BDAG but I do find "flutter" in LSJ for the verb PTOEW, which appears to be a denominative verb from the root PET/POT/PT whence we derive PIPTW (fall), PETAMAI (fly), PTWSIS (grammatical "case" from "falling", PTWMA (corpse), etc. I think that PTOHSIS really means the "quivering" or "shudder" that is a physical manifestation of fear. That being the case, I would understand MHDEMIAN PTOHSIN not as an object or complement of FOBOUMENOI but rather as an adverbial accusative: "and not being afraid even so much as a shiver" or we might say, "not even so much as a frisson."
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