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Syntax of Matthew 19:9

Posted: July 19th, 2020, 4:26 am
by jjThomas
Can Matthew 19:9 be read, consistent with the record of Ancient Greek, "whoever would loose from the wife of his not upon fornication and [whoever] would marry another commits adultery"?

Re: Syntax of Matthew 19:9

Posted: July 19th, 2020, 8:46 am
by Barry Hofstetter
Just by way of reminder, we discuss the Greek on B-Greek, and don't normally discuss translations, except in so far as a translation may illustrate a particular understanding of the Greek. We also generally cite the Greek text if possible:

λέγω δὲ ὑμῖν ὅτι ὃς ἂν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην μοιχᾶται.

My answer, however, is no, since the first part of your translation makes little sense in English, and translations which make little or no sense are never right. Perhaps the question you should be asking is how the preposition ἐπί is being used in this context, and also the verb ἀπολύω.

Re: Syntax of Matthew 19:9

Posted: July 23rd, 2020, 10:30 am
by jjThomas
I would like to try to clarify what (at least for me) rather uncertain matter of syntax the hypothesised translation of Matt 19:9 raises. Were speakers uniformly required, in speaking felicitous (generally acceptable) Ancient Greek, and more specifically Koine, to set out the pronoun ὃς in each clause of a compound sentence of the form,

(1) "Whoever does X, and whoever does Y, is Z"?

Does Ancient Greek allow for ambiguity, in distinguishing (1) from

(2) "Whoever does X and does Y is Z"?

Re: Syntax of Matthew 19:9

Posted: July 23rd, 2020, 1:02 pm
by Jonathan Robie
jjThomas wrote: July 23rd, 2020, 10:30 am I would like to try to clarify what (at least for me) rather uncertain matter of syntax the hypothesised translation of Matt 19:9 raises. Were speakers uniformly required, in speaking felicitous (generally acceptable) Ancient Greek, and more specifically Koine, to set out the pronoun ὃς in each clause of a compound sentence of the form,

(1) "Whoever does X, and whoever does Y, is Z"?

Does Ancient Greek allow for ambiguity, in distinguishing (1) from

(2) "Whoever does X and does Y is Z"?
Did you you have a question about Greek syntax? Your translation seems to entirely ignore the syntax of the sentence, and does not attempt to build equivalent syntax in English. It looks more like an interlinear than an actual translation.

Could you please quote the Greek phrases you are particularly interested in and ask questions about syntax using syntactic terms? I cannot tell, from your post, whether you know anything about Greek or language or not. We need to start from a more informed question.

Re: Syntax of Matthew 19:9

Posted: July 23rd, 2020, 5:01 pm
by Stephen Carlson
I think he just wants to know if the subjects of the two subjunctives are co-referential.