Dispute about σήμερον in the syntax of Luke 23:43

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S Walch
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Re: Dispute about σήμερον in the syntax of Luke 23:43

Post by S Walch »

Jean Putmans wrote: July 19th, 2021, 1:17 am A Look at Willker's page http://www.willker.de/wie/TCG/
(commentary Luke) might be helpful.

He also mentions the discussion of the Churchfathers on this problem, as well as the Gospel of Nicodemus (4-5th CE).
Reading through the commentary, it can be clearly seen how exactly to construe σήμερον here has been debated and interpreted differently for the past two millennia; evidently we're probably not going to be able to answer this by syntax alone.

Interestingly, Willker quotes this from B-Greek's very own Carl Conrad:

Cal Conrad wrote on the Bgreek mailing list (Jan 15 2000):
"I have personally come around to think that associating the SHMERON with AMHN LEGW SOI is not only likely but that Jesus-saying here cited in Luke's narrative seems better suited to its context. I'll add too, that while some may have theological reasons for wanting to understand SHMERON with ESHi MET' EMOU ..., my own thinking here has more to do with a judgment of historical probability in the context.

I should add also that one thing about this text that's always struck me as fascinating is that, IF one assumes that SHMERON belongs with ESHi (as I have until now thought preferable), this Jesus-saying is surely inconsistent with the generally-consistent futuristic eschatology of a delayed Parousia which we find set forth in Luke. And while one may occasionally find items in any one NT book that are hard to square with other data in the same NT book, yet this is jarringly inconsistent, and the more I've thought about it, the more unlikely the meaning derived from understanding SHMERON with ESHi seems to me."

https://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-arc ... 35098.html

FWIW, I actually agree with taking σήμερον with the preceding rather than following clause.
Eeli Kaikkonen
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Re: Dispute about σήμερον in the syntax of Luke 23:43

Post by Eeli Kaikkonen »

Daniel Semler wrote: July 18th, 2021, 3:07 pm I would argue TC would not get you to meaning.
Of course. But Luke wrote only one thing and meant one thing with it. Therefore we should first know what Luke wrote if we want to know what he meant and at the same time what Jesus meant - unless there's no possible difference at all in meaning with different readings. Now we can only analyze and compare different sentences.
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