[B-Greek] Acts 26:16 hWN TE EIDES ME and hWN TE OFQHSOMAI SOI
John Sanders
john.franklin.sanders at gmail.com
Thu Oct 21 01:49:58 EDT 2010
Just some thoughts:
I agree with Dr. Conrad, I would question the reading “of the things in
which you have seen me.” But I am not sure I would go the route Dr. Conrad
has pointed out. If I begin from a basis that ME is original (which I do
not know whether it is so), then I would venture to present what appears to
me to be two “parallelisms”: the first is WFQHN SOI balanced by EIDES ME. The
first is in the passive construction, Paul is the recipient and the second
is in the active and Paul knowingly and actively is doing the seeing (the
fact that he is physically blind makes this all the more interesting). In
addition, remaining on this “parallelism”, in a manner of speaking, WFWQHN
initiates the PROXEIRISASQAI SE hUPHRETHN KAI MARTURA with the WN TE EIDES
ME the resultant.
The second ‘parallelism” is the TE…TE construction. What is not in parallel
is the ME and SOI words (well, maybe, but only in minor way in my way of
thinking). Both WN clauses are in the “perfective” aspect (that is both
have the end point in view). The first is aorist (the end point is the
WFQHN/EIDES event) and the second is future (with the end point being the
last hUPHRETHN KAI MARTURA that is included in OFQHSOMAI (and I would
suspect begins where the first ends).
OFQHSOMAI I consider to be “middle” in construction and to be essentially
intransitive, or at least less-transitive since SOI is not accusative
(although in English we would require the accusative).
John Sanders
Suzhou, China
On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 12:48 AM, Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com> wrote:
> On Oct 19, 2010, at 8:40 AM, Mark Lightman wrote:
> > Hi, Vacile,
> >
> > You are next to Marilyn in my I-Pod, your Genesis:
> >
> > http://stancu.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/gen-gv.mp3
> >
> > <My feeling is that the ὧn hWN here designates a two way Genitive, one
> related
> > to MARTURA and the other to the unexpressed object of εἶδες EIDES and
> ὀφθήσομαι
> > OFQHSOMAI respectively, giving thus sense to the με ME and everything
> else.>
> >
> > So the με ME is in apposition to the hWN's? How would you translate the
> ME?
> >
> > Mark L
> >
> >
> >
> > FWSFOROS MARKOS
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Vasile STANCU <stancu at mail.dnttm.ro>
> > To: Mark Lightman <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>; Carl Conrad <
> cwconrad2 at mac.com>;
> > Marilyn Phemister <windmill65 at yahoo.com>
> > Cc: B-Greek <B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> > Sent: Mon, October 18, 2010 10:16:21 PM
> > Subject: RE: [B-Greek] Acts 26:16 hWN TE EIDES ME and hWN TE OFQHSOMAI
> SOI
> >
> > My feeling is that the ὧn hWN here designates a two way Genitive, one
> related to
> > MARTURA and the other to the unexpressed object of εἶδες EIDES and
> ὀφθήσομαι
> > OFQHSOMAI respectively, giving thus sense to the με ME and everything
> else.
> >
> > Vasile Stancu
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
> > [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Mark Lightman
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2010 3:59 AM
> > To: Carl Conrad; Marilyn Phemister
> > Cc: B-Greek
> > Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Acts 26:16 hWN TE EIDES ME and hWN TE OFQHSOMAI
> SOI
> >
> > Marilyn egrapse:
> >
> >> Esteemed Scholars,
> >>
> >> I'm having difficulty understanding the two four-word phrases beginning
> with
> >> hWN in Acts 26:16:
> >>
> >>
> >> εἰς τοῦτο γὰρ ὤφθην σοι, προχειρίσασθαι σε ὑπηρέτην καὶ μάρτυρα ὧν τε
> εἶδες
> >> [με] ὧν τε ὀφθήσομαι σοι,
> >>
> >> EIS TOUTO GAR WFQHN SOI, PROXEIRISASQAI SE hUPHRETHN KAI MARTURA hWN TE
> EIDES
> >> ME hWN TE OFQHSOMAI SOI
> >>
> >>
> >> I don't understand the use of hWN with ME in the first one and hWN with
> >> OFQHSOMAI in the second one.
> >
> > Hi, Marilyn,
> >
> > It's good to hear your voice, so to speak, somewhere other than in my MP3
> > player.
> >
> > Carl and Father Patrick have explained the attraction, but your question
> is
> > about the ME, right? If original, I would stick with the theory of
> attraction
> > and take it as an accusative of respect " a witness of the things which
> you
> > have seen in respect to me, and the things I will show to you." This
> appears
> > to be the way NIV takes it. ("A witness of what you have seen of me.")
> But
> > NRSV may be doing something a little different "the things in which you
> have
> > seen me." Under this scenario, maybe the first hWN is some kind of
> genitive of
> >
> > source ("a witness of the things from where you are able to see me.")
> and
> > attraction explains only the second hWN.
> >
> > If your question was not about the ME, I'll make it MY question. How do
> the
> > esteemed scholars see the grammar of this ME which may or may not have
> been
> > there?
>
> The text itself is really questionable here. NA27/UBS3 has ME braccketed. I
> think that the text makes better sense without it (as MT exhibits it). But
> that is precisely why the textual critics speak of hWN TE EIDES ME as the
> "lectio difficilior" -- "the reading harder to make sense of."
>
> The NET note on this text reads as follows:
>
> "50 tc ‡ Some MSS read “of the things in which you have seen me.” The
> accusative object με (me, “me”) is found after εἶδές (eides) in B C✱vid 614
> 945 1175 1505 1739 1891 2464 pc sy sa; it is lacking in P74 ℵ A C2 E Ψ 096 M
> latt bo. The external evidence is relatively evenly divided, though there is
> a slight preference for the omission. NA27 includes the word in brackets,
> indicating some doubt as to its authenticity."
>
> I would question understanding hWN TE EIDES ME as “of the things in which
> you have seen me.” I'm no textual critic, but it would appear to me that
> either (a) ME was added by some scribe as a direct object of EIDES in order
> to make EIDES ME an active parallel to the hWN TE OFQHSOMAI SOI, or (b) ME
> was omitted in order to make the parallelism between hWN TE EIDES and hWN TE
> OFQHSOMAI SOI more intelligible. It seems to me that both alternatives are
> problematic; although I think I prefer reading the text without ME, on the
> other hand understanding OFQHSOMAI SOI as a causative middle (as I suggested
> in my initial response to the query) is somewhat awkward, inasmuch as the
> expression OFQHNAI TINI ordinarily is intransitive in the sense of "appear
> to someone" rather than causative "make oneself seen by someone." The choice
> seems to lie, it seems to me, rather "between a rock and a hard place," or
> to be more precise, between a "lectio difficilior" and a "lectio
> difficillima."
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
> > ________________________________
> > From: Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
> > To: Marilyn Phemister <windmill65 at yahoo.com>
> > Cc: B-Greek <B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> > Sent: Mon, October 18, 2010 3:37:47 PM
> > Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Acts 26:16 hWN TE EIDES ME and hWN TE OFQHSOMAI
> SOI
> >
> > On Oct 18, 2010, at 5:13 PM, Marilyn Phemister wrote:
> >> Esteemed Scholars,
> >>
> >> I'm having difficulty understanding the two four-word phrases beginning
> with
> >> hWN in Acts 26:16:
> >>
> >>
> >> εἰς τοῦτο γὰρ ὤφθην σοι, προχειρίσασθαι σε ὑπηρέτην καὶ μάρτυρα ὧν τε
> εἶδες
> >> [με] ὧν τε ὀφθήσομαι σοι,
> >>
> >> EIS TOUTO GAR WFQHN SOI, PROXEIRISASQAI SE hUPHRETHN KAI MARTURA hWN TE
> EIDES
> >> ME hWN TE OFQHSOMAI SOI
> >>
> >>
> >> I don't understand the use of hWN with ME in the first one and hWN with
> >> OFQHSOMAI in the second one.
> >
> > I think that both relatives are genitive dependent upon MARTURA in a
> common
> > construction wherein the relative pronoun takes the case of the implicit
> but
> > unexpressed generalized antecedent (as in "I didn't see [the one] who did
> > this."). " ... to designate you as agent and witness of what you've seen
> and of
> > what I'll reveal to you."
> >
> > I think the difficulty here probably lies in OFQHSOMAI. Although it's
> customary
> > to call this a "deponent" or, as BDAG likes to put it, "Passive with
> active
> > sense", we most commonly see this in the aorist with a dative of the
> person,
> > OFQHNAI TINI "appear to someone (in a vision)." I think it would make
> more sense
> >
> > to speak of this as a causative middle, "make oneself visible to someone"
> or
> > "make visible to someone." Here we have two forms of the verb hORAW, one
> of them
> >
> > active, the author causative middle.
> > So I understand the key phrases being asked about here as: "of (the
> things)
> > which you have seen and of (the things) which I shall make you see (i.e.
> reveal
> > to you)."
> >
> > Carl W. Conrad
> > Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
>
>
>
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--
John Sanders
Suzhou, China
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