[b-greek] Re: DEIGMA in Jude 7: Nominative or Accusative?

From: Randy Leedy (Rleedy@bju.edu)
Date: Wed Dec 05 2001 - 16:26:11 EST


By the way, Carl, this one COULD conceivably be tested (unlike
Whatmough's claim that you cite), if we could find PROKEIMAI with a
masculine or feminine predicate. I have scanned through the LSJ
article at the Perseus site, but I don't see any constructions that
appear parallel to this one. But some of them are unreadable to me
with my NT-only experience. I did see one that looks promising, but
because PROKEIMAI is in the infinitive, BOTH its subject and its
predicate (if I'm guessing correctly at the syntax) are accusative:
NOMIZETE TON PAIDA TOUTONI hIKETHRIAN hUMIN PROKEISQAI. (This
occurrence appears in section I.2.)

Also, apologies to the list for failing to supply the transliterated
text in my initial message.

Randy Leedy
Bob Jones University
Greenville, SC
RLeedy@bju.edu

>>> "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu> 12/05/01 03:31PM
>>>
At 12:42 PM -0500 12/5/01, Randy Leedy wrote:
>This a somewhat arcane question of purely grammatical interest.
What
>do you think about DEIGMA in Jude 7? The two versions of the
GRAMCORD
>data that I have both parse it as accusative, as do the BibleWorks
and
>Friberg databases. But it looks nominative to me, a predicate
renaming
>the nominative subjects of of PROKEINTAI, which could perhaps be
taken
>either passively or intransitively. I don't see any grammatical
reason
>to assume that a switch to the accusative case has taken place at
this
>point in the sentence. In a quick pass through 16 NT & LXX
occurences
>of PROKEIMAI I found no instances with a predicate to compare with
>this one. BDAG cites an instance from Josephus, but there, too, the
>predicate is neuter and hence ambiguous as to its case. I haven't
>checked the indices to my Grammars yet, but I assume if a consensus
>appeared in them that such a construction should be nominative,
then
>the databases would show nominative. So I'm not expecting to find
them
>supporting my inclination to go with the nominative.
>
>I can't put my finger on them at the moment, but it would not be
>difficult to find plenty of parallel constructions with other verbs
>(in addition to the obvious linking verbs) where the verb's
complement
>is nominative when it renames or modifies the subject.

Text: hWS SODOMA KAI GOMORRA KAI hAI PERI AUTAS POLEIS TON hOMOION
TROPON
TOUTOIS EKPORNEUSASAI KAI APELQOUSAI OPISW SARKOS hETERAS,
PROKEINTAI
DEIGMA PUROS AIWNIOU DIKHN hUPECOUSAI.

Randy, it looks nominative to me also with PROKEINTAI as a sort of
copula
"stand out as an example" = "constitute an outstanding example." I
suppose
that traditionally DEIGMA is understood as object of hUPECOUSAI and
that
PUROS AIWNIOU DIKHN are seen as appositional to DEIGMA.

And here I will offer what can only be viewed as an outrageous
proposal:
that PROKEINTAI be understood to have a sort of middle force:
"display
themselves as an example" = "constitute an outstanding example as
they
undergo the punishment of everlasting fire"--in which case of
course,
DEIGMA will be accusative after all.

[I'm reminded of Johsua Whatmough in dim dark days of yore
proclaiming that
the so-called accusative absolute with the neuter participle of an
impersonal verb is really a nominative absolute; unfortunately the
hypothesis could never be tested, since the nominative and
accusative
neuter participle are identical in form.]
--

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828)
675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad@ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

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