From: clayton stirling bartholomew (c.s.bartholomew@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Sun Jul 05 1998 - 07:18:11 EDT
Thank you David,
I think that there is certainly merit in your observations. My original post
was kind of confusing because I was really raising several questions rather
than one. I started out asking a question about how to read Acts 12:19 and
ended up exploring methodology in lexical semantics. Perhaps I can clarify
things a little now.
David L. Moore wrote:
>It doesn't seem, however, APACQHNAI
> has been left ambiguous in Acts 12:19.
Louw and Nida and F.F. Bruce both consider APAGW ambiguous in this context. L
& N list APAGW in Acts 12:19 under two domains, 20:65 "to kill, to execute"
and 56:38 "Lead off to punishment". F.F. Bruce (Acts, 1954 NICNT, p253 n. 17)
says that "to be put to death" is a translation of the reading APOKTANQHNAI
from Codex Bezae. He goes on to point out that APAGW is ambiguous in this
context and probably means "led away to punishment."
>>>>>
The word is well attested in this sense (see BAGD s.v. APAGW, 2, c). Note
especially the use of the word with no addition, a section which includes
Luke 23:26; Jn. 19:16 (in MS Aleph among others), and the verse we are
discussing. So we shouldn't be afraid to understand "led away [to be
executed]" here.
>>>>>>
I have noted these texts. In Luke 23:26 APAGW does not mean execute (IMHO), it
is used in a context where execution is about to take place but the SENSE of
APAGW does not included the semantic component "to what" in this passage any
more than it does in Acts 12:19. The context of Luke 23:26 leaves absolutely
no doubt about where Jesus was being taken. But my argument has to do with the
SENSE of APAGW not the interpretation of the whole passage.
Let me illustrate this point from an English example. In Truman Capote's "In
Cold Blood", Perry and Dick are on death row in Leavenworth for a long time.
In the language of Leavenworth, particularly death row, when a man was
executed he had "gone to the corner." Now if someone were to ask Perry what
had happened to Dick and he said "gone to the corner". It would be clear that
Dick had been executed. But the word "gone" does not contain the semantic
component "to where" or "to what". The word "gone" is used with it's normal
SENSE, but the situational context and the linguistic context both provide the
information that Dick was executed.
This example from "In Cold Blood" is parallel to the use of APAGW in Luke
23:26. It is not parallel to the use of APAGW in Acts 12:19 where some real
ambiguity exists. In both of these contexts there is no reason to add the
semantic component "to what" or "to where" to the SENSE of APAGW.
This is an exploration of the application of lexical semantic theory. I am
trying to explore the boundary between the SENSE of a lexeme and the USE of
the lexeme in a particular context. Since it is an exploration all the
statements made here are quite tentative (even if the tone does not indicate
such).
-- Clayton Stirling Bartholomew Three Tree Point P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062--- B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu] To unsubscribe, forward this message to unsubscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, send a message to
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