Antiquities 1:50

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Matthew Longhorn
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Antiquities 1:50

Post by Matthew Longhorn »

§49 ὁ δὲ θεὸς ἥττονα γυναικείας συμβουλίας αὐτὸν γενόμενον ὑπετίθει τιμωρίᾳ, τὴν γῆν οὐκέτι μὲν οὐδὲν αὐτοῖς ἀναδώσειν αὐτομάτως εἰπών, πονοῦσι δὲ καὶ τοῖς ἔργοις τριβομένοις τὰ μὲν παρέξειν, τῶν δ ̓ οὐκ ἀξιώσειν. Εὔαν δὲ τοκετοῖς καὶ ταῖς ἐξ ὠδίνων ἀλγηδόσιν ἐκόλαζεν, ὅτι τὸν Ἄδαμον οἷς αὐτὴν ὁ ὄφις ἐξηπάτησε τούτοις παρακρουσαμένη συμφοραῖς περιέβαλεν. §50 ἀφείλετο δὲ καὶ τὸν ὄφιν τὴν φωνὴν ὀργισθεὶς
ἐπὶ τῇ κακοηθείᾳ τῇ πρὸς τὸν Ἄδαμον
Josephus, F., & Niese, B. (1888–). Flavii Iosephi opera recognovit Benedictvs Niese ... Berolini: apvd Weidmannos.
I was a bit puzzled by the double accusative in the quote above. I was expecting οφις to be in the genitive as it is the voice of the snake that God removed. Is this a double accusative construction of person / thing? I found the following in Robertson's grammar so think it is, his reference to the NT never having two accusatives with αφαιρεω implying it does in wider Koine/Classical?
Another group of verbs in the ancient Greek with two accusatives is that of depriving, etc. Here indeed the ablative may take the place of one accusative, as in 1 Tim. 6:5 with the passive of ἀποστερέω the ablative is retained (τῆς ἀληθείας). But in the N. T. neither ἀποστερέω, nor ἀφαιρέω, nor κρύπτω has two accusatives. Either the ablative alone occurs or with ἀπό (Lu. 16:3; Lu. 19:42; Rev. 6:16). With φυλάσσεσθαι (Ac. 21:25) αὐτούς is the accusative of general reference (so-called “subject”) of the infinitive.
Robertson, A. T. (2006). A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (p. 483). Logos Bible Software.
nathaniel j. erickson
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Re: Antiquities 1:50

Post by nathaniel j. erickson »

Both LSJ and Brill record ἀφαιρέω τινά τι as a way to say "remove something from someone," or "deprive someone of something." Both specifically lists this as a mid. usage of the verb. LSJ says it is "freq in Att. and Trag." with the gen. being rare. I suppose the usage of the word as attested in the NT is not Attic enough for Josephus' standards, and he goes with the more Attic usage with two acc.

Thackeray renders the phrase in question: "He moreover deprived the serpent of speech, indignant at his malignity to Adam."

P.S. I like how you are asking a question about Josephus in the beginners forum. I would be interested to see what sort of questions you would ask on an advanced forum!
Nathaniel J. Erickson
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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
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Matthew Longhorn
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Re: Antiquities 1:50

Post by Matthew Longhorn »

nathaniel j. erickson wrote: October 24th, 2020, 12:11 pm P.S. I like how you are asking a question about Josephus in the beginners forum. I would be interested to see what sort of questions you would ask on an advanced forum!
haha, I figured that it was a question about double accusatives so a beginner level topic at least.

Thanks for the references to LSJ. I think I need to get better at using the lexicons, I tend to get lost in the details sometimes. I did check BDAG, and then got lost in BrillDAG
I checked Thackeray and also Feldman/Mason for translation, so felt confident in the sense of the expression, just curious about whether it was indeed a double accusative. Something that I seemingly need to learn again
Matthew Longhorn
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Re: Antiquities 1:50

Post by Matthew Longhorn »

So, a follow up question. What category of middle does the middle of αφαιρεω fall into here? Indirect reflexive seems the best I can think of, in the sense of God did it in some way to benefit himself. This could be so that further instigation to sin would be prevented?
Direct reflexive doesn't seem to work, not do the other categories proposed by Rutger llan / Rachel Aubrey so far as I can see
Barry Hofstetter
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Re: Antiquities 1:50

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Matthew Longhorn wrote: October 24th, 2020, 1:16 pm So, a follow up question. What category of middle does the middle of αφαιρεω fall into here? Indirect reflexive seems the best I can think of, in the sense of God did it in some way to benefit himself. This could be so that further instigation to sin would be prevented?
Direct reflexive doesn't seem to work, not do the other categories proposed by Rutger llan / Rachel Aubrey so far as I can see
Well, God certainly doesn't do the action to himself (direct reflexive), and that leads to what we are calling indirect reflexive, or that there is subject affectedness/involvement in the use of the verb. However, any number of verbs in the middle tend to take on a specialized meaning, such as αἱρέω, take, but αἱρέομαι, choose, where the subject involvement is self-evident, so to speak. In some cases, the subject involvement has practically receded from view. For ἀφαιρέω the entry in LSJ:
c. dupl. acc. rei et pers., bereave or deprive of, μήτε σὺ τόνδʼ .. ἀποαίρεο κούρην Il.1.275, cf. Hdt.1.71, 7.104; freq. in Att. and Trag., Lys. l.c., Th.8.74, D.20.46, etc.;
Liddell, H. G., Scott, R., Jones, H. S., & McKenzie, R. (1996). A Greek-English lexicon (p. 286). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

This suggest to me just such a specialized meaning, "deprive" without any necessary sense of self interest on the part of the subject, except for what can be discerned from context.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
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Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
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Stephen Carlson
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Re: Antiquities 1:50

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Matthew Longhorn wrote: October 24th, 2020, 1:16 pm So, a follow up question. What category of middle does the middle of αφαιρεω fall into here? Indirect reflexive seems the best I can think of, in the sense of God did it in some way to benefit himself. This could be so that further instigation to sin would be prevented?
Direct reflexive doesn't seem to work, not do the other categories proposed by Rutger llan / Rachel Aubrey so far as I can see
If you look at LSJ for the middle of this verb, you get: "from Hom. downwds. more freq. than Act., take away for oneself." In its origin, then, it is clearly an indirect reflexive middle, and over time it seems to have expanded its range of usage at the expense of the active in more and more contexts where the sense of benefit for the subject is less and less important.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Matthew Longhorn
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Re: Antiquities 1:50

Post by Matthew Longhorn »

Stephen Carlson wrote: October 26th, 2020, 3:04 am If you look at LSJ for the middle of this verb, you get: "from Hom. downwds. more freq. than Act., take away for oneself." In its origin, then, it is clearly an indirect reflexive middle, and over time it seems to have expanded its range of usage at the expense of the active in more and more contexts where the sense of benefit for the subject is less and less important.
Thanks, I definitely need to get better at using lexicons
Matthew Longhorn
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Re: Antiquities 1:50

Post by Matthew Longhorn »

I just read an interesting chapter written by Anssi Voitila in The Legacy of Soisalon-Soininen on the use of the middle voice in the Septuagint. She argues that the subject affected meaning of the middle voice doesn’t always apply and in such cases the marking of the dominion of the agent or close involvement in the events could be seen
This study was looking at aorist middle uses of τιθημι and in her conclusion (page 95-96) she notes
This short study has shown that the subject’s dominion is a more suitable explanation than the subject’s affected ness for the aorist middle voice usage of τιθέναι in the Septuagint and the other literary evidence treated here. The subject’s affected ness applies in many instances, but not everywhere. Likewise, this interpretation prevents us from realising the role of the agent as the controller of the entire process that falls under the scope of the middle verbs and their arguments. On the contrary, it makes the interpreter regard - too easily - the agent as a mere patient, and not as the initiator of the action. The agent in these instances appeared often, if not always, as superior to the patient or the beneficiary and as highly involved in his own actions
I am wondering whether this could be in some way related to my question about the middle usage. Not asking a question here, so much as just sticking a thought out that people may find interesting re middle usage
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Antiquities 1:50

Post by Stephen Carlson »

It's almost like this usage of the middle corresponds to a self-referential ethical dative. I think that would fall under the indirect reflexive (though not a central or prototypical example) and I think it qualifies as subject-affected in Allan's scheme, though apparently not as Voitila wants to understand it.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
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