[b-greek] Re: TO TELION 1Corinthians 13:10 Revisit of prior discussion plus new.

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Mar 05 2001 - 16:58:28 EST


At 4:20 PM -0500 3/5/01, David Hakes wrote:
>The earliar postings state that "to telion" is neuter substantive.

And you'll have considerable difficulty proving otherwise to anyone who
knows Greek. The adjective TELIOS is here in a form governed by a neuter
article TO and can ONLY be a nominative or accusative neuter substantive.

>Someone
>is trying to tell me that "to telion" is substantival adjective. They
>therefore stress - as a substantial adjective there must be a referrent
>nearby and therefore someone such as Spiros Zodiates cannot believe that
>the "perfect thing" is scripture. The earlier postings seem to convey that
>the "perfect thing" could in a way be translated "perfect anything". They
>also state: "Grammatically, "ton telion" is a neuter noun. But the word
>for scripture for scripture 'graphe' is feminine.Scripture is nowhere
>identified, and is a feminine noun. Therefore a neuter adjective will not
>refer to a feminine noun--especially when the idea is nowhere in the
>context." I do not believe that Spiros Zodhiates would purposely go
>against the language.

The point here is not what Zodhiates says but what the evidence of the text
indicates. Unquestionably the form is neuter. There are situations where a
neuter substantive or pronoun could refer to to an idea indicated by a
feminine noun, but I don't believe this is such an instance.

It seems to me that both noun and adjective is
>dropped from "neuter substantive" whereas the other person uses
>Bauer-Arndt-Gingtich-Danker "refers to telion(a,os depending on the
>gender)as an adjective." Also,"a substantival adjective is an adjective is
>an adjective functioning as a noun - the adjective takes the place as a
>noun.

Yes, but when an adjective is used as a substantive in the sense of a
"thing," it takes the neuter form.

In English"perfect" is not a noun, it is a comparative term, it
>modifies other words.But once that other thing has been identified, the
>adjective can stand in its place." All this does not seem to jive with the
>way "to telion" was discussed earlier.

I really don't know what this is meant to argue.

Plus you can apparently say 'ton
>telion' because of a Greek grammatical device called a "movable nu" as a
>personal stylistic choice. I also agree

It's decidedly NOT TON TELION but TO TELION; you can add a "movable nu" to
a verb ending in -E or -I or to a dative plural ending in -I, but I've
never in 50 years of work with Greek heard of a movable nu added to a
neuter article.

--

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

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