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Τίνι γὰρ εἶπέν ποτε τῶν ἀγγέλων (Heb 1:5)

Posted: September 25th, 2016, 7:48 pm
by Tim Evans
When I read this:
Τίνι γὰρ εἶπέν ποτε τῶν ἀγγέλων
To me, it reads as:
For to whom has he ever said, (speaking) of angels:
It seems like every major new testament translation reads it like this:

Code: Select all

Τίνι     γὰρ    εἶπέν ποτε 
  ↳ τῶν ἀγγέλων

To which of the angels, did he ever say:
It seems I have a problem distinguishing where "τῶν ἀγγέλων" attaches, is that correct? What am I missing?

Thanks!

Re: Τίνι γὰρ εἶπέν ποτε τῶν ἀγγέλων (Heb 1:5)

Posted: September 25th, 2016, 11:40 pm
by Stephen Carlson
As far I can tell, the genitive isn't used with λέγειν / εἰπεῖν to mean "to speak of".

Re: Τίνι γὰρ εἶπέν ποτε τῶν ἀγγέλων (Heb 1:5)

Posted: September 26th, 2016, 12:16 am
by Stirling Bartholomew
Stephen Carlson wrote:As far I can tell, the genitive isn't used with λέγειν / εἰπεῖν to mean "to speak of".
Agreed. One way to find out is search LSJ for c. gen.
Homerus Odyssea Book 11, line 174
εἰπὲ δέ μοι πατρός τε καὶ υἱέος

And tell me of my father and my son

Re: Τίνι γὰρ εἶπέν ποτε τῶν ἀγγέλων (Heb 1:5)

Posted: September 26th, 2016, 12:27 am
by Stephen Carlson
Stirling Bartholomew wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:As far I can tell, the genitive isn't used with λέγειν / εἰπεῖν to mean "to speak of".
Agreed. One way to find out is search LSJ for c. gen.
Homerus Odyssea Book 11, line 174
εἰπὲ δέ μοι πατρός τε καὶ υἱέος

And tell me of my father and my son
Well, I did search λέγω in LSJ, and consulted BDAG by hand. That entry you found is in εἶπον , however :ugeek:.

Still it would be good to get a sense of how common this construction is in Koine, rather than Epic Greek.

Beginners need to learn that just because the genitive is commonly glossed in English as "of", that does not mean the genitive would be used everywhere "of" is appropriate, particularly with verbs.

Re: Τίνι γὰρ εἶπέν ποτε τῶν ἀγγέλων (Heb 1:5)

Posted: September 26th, 2016, 12:52 pm
by Stirling Bartholomew
To Stephen:

I was agreeing with you but addressing Tim Evans. I also looked at BDAG but my hard copy is hard to read at my age.

To Tim Evans:

Another approach is to look in the grammars under genitive with verbs of speaking. Normal pattern would use a preposition: εἶπεν περὶ τοῦ πνεύματος.

John 7:39 τοῦτο δὲ εἶπεν περὶ τοῦ πνεύματος ὃ ἔμελλον λαμβάνειν οἱ πιστεύσαντες εἰς αὐτόν· οὔπω γὰρ ἦν πνεῦμα, ὅτι Ἰησοῦς οὐδέπω ἐδοξάσθη.

A more complicated example:

Acts 19:40 καὶ γὰρ κινδυνεύομεν ἐγκαλεῖσθαι στάσεως περὶ τῆς σήμερον, μηδενὸς αἰτίου ὑπάρχοντος περὶ οὗ [οὐ] δυνησόμεθα ἀποδοῦναι λόγον περὶ τῆς συστροφῆς ταύτης. καὶ ταῦτα εἰπὼν ἀπέλυσεν τὴν ἐκκλησίαν.

Re: Τίνι γὰρ εἶπέν ποτε τῶν ἀγγέλων (Heb 1:5)

Posted: September 26th, 2016, 8:14 pm
by Tim Evans
Thanks guys! Your replies are really useful.

I understand genitive is not simply a matter of inserting "of". I just did not understand in this case _why_. Without the benefit of the English I would have had no idea why the genitive clause connected to a different part of the sentence.

It seems that searching for usages of verbs in these types of cases is helpful. But I don't know how to know when I need to go off and do that—Except by checking the english :shock:

Re: Τίνι γὰρ εἶπέν ποτε τῶν ἀγγέλων (Heb 1:5)

Posted: September 26th, 2016, 10:51 pm
by Stephen Carlson
Tim Evans wrote:It seems that searching for usages of verbs in these types of cases is helpful.
It's always helpful to consult the lexicon on the different ways verbs take their arguments. Usually, the sense of the accusative is easy to guess, but aside from that it's worth confirming in the lexicon if you have any doubt.