[B-Greek] Force of KAI in 1 Cor 11:23?
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Thu Feb 17 09:13:02 EST 2011
On Feb 17, 2011, at 8:57 AM, Stephen Carlson wrote:
> A famous passage in Paul, 1 Cor 11:23 reads:
>
> Ἐγὼ γὰρ παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου, ὃ καὶ παρέδωκα ὑμῖν, ὅτι ὁ κύριος Ἰησοῦς ...
>
> EGW GAR PARELABON APO TOU KURIOU, hO KAI PAREDWKA hUMIN, hOTI hO
> KURIOS IHSOUS ...
>
> It is usually rendered as "For I received from the Lord, which I also
> handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus ..."
>
> Curious about the force of the καί KAI, I looked up the entry in BDAG
> p. 496, s.v. καί, 2f, and saw this explanation: "used w[ith] a
> relative, it oft[en] gives greater independence to the foll[owing]
> relative clause," citing 1 Cor 11:23 among other passages.
>
> What does BDAG mean by "greater independence"? Unfortunately BDAG does
> not cite any secondary literature on this point.
>
> For what it's worth, Denniston on Particles, pp.294-295, treats KAI
> with the relative pronoun as follows:
>
> "In general καί emphasize the fact that the relative clause contains
> an addition to the information contained in the main clause: whereas
> δή stresses the importance of the antecedent, and γε usually marks the
> relative clause as having a limiting force. . . . The emphasis which
> καί gives to a relative clause can often be best brought out in
> English by the insertion of a new (pronominal) antecedent."
>
> Applying Denniston's proposed translations of some Attic examples to 1
> Cor 11:23 may mean that the following translation gives the feel of
> the construction: "For I received from the Lord (and that is what I
> handed on to you) that the Lord Jesus ..."
>
> Turning back to BDAG's notion of "greater independence," would that
> mean that the relative clause with KAI almost becomes a parenthetical?
This is an interesting question. After giving it a bit of thought, I'm
thinking that the context in which he presents this 'traditiona" account
of the last supper -- as a basis for scolding the Corinthian believers for
abusing the ritual -- doesn't figure heavily in this "parenthetical"
formulation: that is, he wants them to acknowledge that this is not
something they haven't known about.
If that's right, then the implicit sense of the hO KAI might be
conveyed as, "This tradition is one that came to ME from the Lord --
and I DID pass it on to YOU" -- i.e. "you have no excuse for
not knowing it."
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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