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John 20:1 Complementary Participle

Posted: July 7th, 2012, 10:34 am
by Stephen Carlson
John 20:1 wrote:καὶ βλέπει τὸν λίθον ἠρμένον ἐκ τοῦ μνημείου.
Complementary participles with verbs of perception can be either in indirect discourse (e.g., NRSV, "and [she] saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb") or not (e.g., NASB, "and [she] saw the stone already taken away from the tomb"). BDAG under βλέπω favors the former interpretation (indirect discourse), but is there any way to decide between the two interpretations?

(NB: it makes a slight semantic difference for the indirect discourse interpretation does not require actually seeing the stone. It could have been completely removed.)

Re: John 20:1 Complementary Participle

Posted: July 7th, 2012, 11:19 am
by cwconrad
Stephen Carlson wrote:
John 20:1 wrote:καὶ βλέπει τὸν λίθον ἠρμένον ἐκ τοῦ μνημείου.
Complementary participles with verbs of perception can be either in indirect discourse (e.g., NRSV, "and [she] saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb") or not (e.g., NASB, "and [she] saw the stone already taken away from the tomb"). BDAG under βλέπω favors the former interpretation (indirect discourse), but is there any way to decide between the two interpretations?

(NB: it makes a slight semantic difference for the indirect discourse interpretation does not require actually seeing the stone. It could have been completely removed.)
"could have been" -- yes, but is that really very likely?

I'm reminded of Mark 9:1 Καὶ ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς· ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι εἰσίν τινες ὧδε τῶν ἑστηκότων οἵτινες οὐ μὴ γεύσωνται θανάτου ἕως ἂν ἴδωσιν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐληλυθυῖαν ἐν δυνάμει

where Mark's parallels are significantly different:

Mt 16:28 ... ἕως ἂν ἴδωσιν τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐρχόμενον ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ αὐτοῦ.

Lk 9:27 ... ἕως ἂν ἴδωσιν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ.

Luke's formulation, of course, is no longer a combination of accusative + participle, so there's no question of an indirect statement, but one may ask the question about the Marcan and the Matthaean expressions (whether either or both is an indirect statement or a simple case of a participle qualifying the object of a verb of perception.

Re: John 20:1 Complementary Participle

Posted: July 7th, 2012, 6:31 pm
by Stephen Carlson
Thanks for those examples, Carl. I'm inclined to view the Mark example as an indirect statement, because of the perfect participle. Matthew's seems ambiguous.

There are some other examples of the construction in John 20. For example, v.5 βλέπει κείμενα τὰ ὀθόνια of the Beloved Disciple and v.6 καὶ θεωρεῖ τὰ ὀθόνια κείμενα of Peter, with some interesting differences in word order, but in these cases the translation do not construe it as an indirect statement..

Re: John 20:1 Complementary Participle

Posted: July 7th, 2012, 11:58 pm
by David Lim
Stephen Carlson wrote:I'm inclined to view the Mark example as an indirect statement, because of the perfect participle. Matthew's seems ambiguous.

There are some other examples of the construction in John 20. For example, v.5 βλέπει κείμενα τὰ ὀθόνια of the Beloved Disciple and v.6 καὶ θεωρεῖ τὰ ὀθόνια κείμενα of Peter, with some interesting differences in word order, but in these cases the translation do not construe it as an indirect statement..
Doesn't the perfect participle just describe the noun at the time that "they shall see", emphasizing the completion of the event, whereas the present participle describes what the noun is "doing" or what "state" the noun is in at that time of perception?