[b-greek] Re: Mark 6:22

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Dec 24 2001 - 13:29:10 EST


At 9:28 AM -0500 12/24/01, Richard Ghilardi wrote:
>At 11:05 PM +0100 12/16/01, Wieland Willker wrote:
>>In the Byzantine text Mark 6:22 reads:
>>KAI EISELQOUSHS THS QUGATROS AUTHS THS HRWDIADOS
>>
>>The AUTHS THS sounds a bit strange to me. Is this "good" Greek? What
>>exactly does it mean
>>and what would be an adequate translation of it?
>
>To which Carl Conrad replied:
>
><< I would assume it's the intensive usage of AUTOS, which is in a
>predicative
>position to the noun with which it construes. The sense would be "the
>daughter of Herodias herself"...>>
>
>Maybe. But it still looks a bit strange to me. I would have expected the
>intensive pronoun to follow the noun it intensifies rather than precede
>it. But perhaps I'm being influenced too much by English usage. I wonder
>what a search of intensive pronouns which precede their nouns vs. ones
>which follow them would reveal? Alas, I don't have the software to do it.

Well, I did it with Accordance, although it took a little while to analyze
the results. What I found:

AUTOS as intensive pronoun PRECEDES proper names with the article 3x (Mt
3:4 AUTOS DE hO IHSOUS, Mk 6:17 AUTOS GAR hO hHRWDHS; Mk 16:8 (long ending:
AUTOS hO IHSOUS);

AUTOS as intensive pronoun PRECEDES proper names without an article 9x (Mt
17:8 AUTON IHSOUN, Mk 12:36 AUTOS DAUID 2X; LK 20:42 AUTOS GAR DAUID; LK
24:15 AUTOS IHSOUS; Jn 2:24 AUTOS DE IHSOUS; Jn 4:44 AUTOS GAR IHSOUS; Eph
2:29 AUTOU CRISTOU IHSOU; Heb 11:11 AUTH SARRA

AUTOS as intensive pronoun FOLLOWS a proper name without an article 1x (Jn
4:2 IHSOUS AUTOS)

AUTOS as intensive pronoun PRECEDES a standard noun with the article 25x;
several of these are temporal phrases, e.g. AUTHi THi hWRAi (Lk 2:38,
12:12, 13:31, 20:19, 24:33; Acts 16:18, 22:13), AUTHi THi hHMERAi (Lk
23:12, 24:13); EN AUTWi TWi KAIRWi (Lk 13:1); others: LK 10:7 (EN AUTHi DE
THi OIKIAi), Jn 16:27 (AUTOS GAR hO PATHR); Jn 21:25 (AUTON ... TON
KOSMON); Rom 8:16 (AUTO TO PNEUMA); Rom 8:21 (AUTH hH KTISIS); Rom 8:26
(AUTO TO PNEUMA); 1 COR 15:28 (AUTOS hO hUIOS); 2 Cor 11:14 (AUTOS GAR hO
SATANAS); 2 Th 2:16 (AUTOS hO KURIOS, so also 2 Th 3:16); Heb 9:19 (AUTO TE
TO BIBLION); Heb 9:23 (AUTA DE TA EPOURANIA); Heb 9:24 (EIS AUTON TON
OURANON); Heb 10:1 (AUTHN THN EIKONA); 3 Jn 1:12 (hUPO AUTHS THS ALHQEIAS);
Rev 21:3 (AUTOS hO QEOS).

AUTOS as intensive pronoun FOLLOWS a standard noun with an article 2x (Jn
14:11 DIA TA ERGA AUTA; Acts 8:13 hO DE SIMWN KAI AUTOS)

AUTOS as intensive pronoun PRECEDES a personal pronoun 7x (Jn 3:28 AUTOI
hUMEIS; Rom 9:3 AUTOS EGW; Rom 7:25 AUTOS EGW; Rom 15:14 AUTOS EGW; 2 COR
10:1 AUTOS EGW; 2 Cor 12:13 AUTOS EGW; 2 Th 1:4 AUTOUS hHMAS)

AUTOS as intensive pronoun FOLLOWS a personal pronoun 6x (Acts 10:26 EGW
AUTOS; Acts 20:30 EX hUMWN AUTWN; Rom 16:2 KAI EMOU AUTOU; 1 Cor 5:13 EX
hUMWN AUTWN; 1 Cor 7:35 PROS TO hUMWN AUTWN SUMFORON; 1 Cor 11:13 EN hUMIN
AUTOIS)

AUTOS as intensive pronoun precedes TOUTO 9x (Rom. 9:17, Rom. 13:6, 2Cor.
5:5, 2Cor. 7:11, 2Cor. 7:11, Eph. 6:22, Phil. 1:6., Col. 4:8, 2Pet. 1:5)

AUTOS as intensive pronoun precedes TOUTO 1X (2 Cor 2:3)

I'd say the evidence supports exactly what I would have expected: that
AUTOS as an intensive pronoun normally PRECEDES the substantive which it
governs, even if it may not uncommonly FOLLOW upon a personal pronoun;
there is nothing problematic with AUTHS THS hHRWDIADOS as a genitive phrase
meaning "of Herodias herself."


>Metzger, in his Textual Commentary, apparently found the Greek a bit
>strange here too, for he suggests that "AUTHS [may] be taken as the
>redundant pronoun anticipating a noun (an Aramaism)."

I would agree that the Greek is awkward--the long string of genitives
dependent upon other genitives--but the Byzantine text you're looking at is
nevertheless intelligible and grammatically sound to mean: "and when the
daughter of Herodias herself entered ..."
--

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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