Luke 8:23 συνεπληροῦντο

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Thomas Dolhanty
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Re: Luke 8:23 συνεπληροῦντο

Post by Thomas Dolhanty »

Stephen Hughes wrote:[Sorry to be slow on the uptake and the dim-witted one, but which part is the punch-line here?
E = βιβλία * (C*C) - or - speaking of degrees of the impossible - impossible, impossibler, impossiblest
γράφω μαθεῖν
George F Somsel
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Re: Luke 8:23 συνεπληροῦντο

Post by George F Somsel »

συνεπληροῦντο καὶ ἐκινδύνευον
I would understand this as "they were being swamped and were endangered." Συνεπληροῦντο is a passive, and although ἐκινδύνευον is an active form it carries a passive meaning (I would tend to classify it as a stative—"they were in a state of danger").
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Tony Pope
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Re: Luke 8:23 συνεπληροῦντο

Post by Tony Pope »

Jonathan Robie wrote:If the situation is described literally, it is the boat that is filling, and the verb does seem to imply filling up. I thought that was interesting.
Thayer's lexicon notes in parenthesis "as sometimes in Gr[ee]k writ[ers] what holds of the ship is applied to those on board, cf. Kypke Observ[ationes] [Vol.] 1 p.248."
Fortunately Google Books has Kypke, and without sweating for too long over his Latin, the gist of it seems to be that he observes that interpreters have been puzzled by the fact that the disciples are said to be being filled whereas in fact it was the boat being filled. But this is an elegant metonymy, he says, in other words the figure of speech whereby you refer not to the item itself but to something that is associated with that item, like this morning in order to make a cup of tea I boiled the kettle.

Kypke then cites two examples from Greek writers, which Perseus gives as follows:

Demosthenes, Adv Leptinem p.366 (20.31)
τὸν Λεύκων᾽ αὐτοῦ τοῖς ἄγουσιν Ἀθήναζε ἀτέλειαν δεδωκέναι, καὶ κηρύττειν πρώτους γεμίζεσθαι τοὺς ὡς ὑμᾶς πλέοντας
[Leucon ... has granted exemption from dues to merchants conveying corn to Athens, and he proclaims that those bound for your port shall have priority of lading]

Note that "literally" he says the merchants are to be laden, i.e. filled with cargo.

Plutarch, Praecepta gerendae reipublicae p.820c
ὥσπερ οὖν ὁ παραπλεύσας τὴν Σύρτιν εἶτ᾽ ἀνατραπεὶς περὶ τὸν πορθμὸν οὐδὲν μέγα πεποίηκεν οὐδὲ σεμνόν [Therefore, just as a man who has sailed past the Syrtis and is then capsized at the channel has done nothing so very great or glorious]

Again, "literally" he says the person is capsized, whereas in reality it is the ship he sails in.
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Luke 8:23 συνεπληροῦντο

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Thomas Dolhanty wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:Sorry to be slow on the uptake and the dim-witted one, but which part is the punch-line here?
E = βιβλία * (C*C) - or - speaking of degrees of the impossible - impossible, impossibler, impossiblest
Ahhh! Relative to the World, the scrolls would over-fill the earth. ὁ κόσμος οὐ χωρεῖ ταῦτα τὰ βιβλία => ὁ κόσμος συνεπληρεῖτο τῶν βιβλίων ἔπειτα παραπληρεῖ τις καὶ ἄλλα βιβλία. Impossible.

Is the cup κένον, ἡμίπληρες, πλῆρες, σύμπληρες or οὐ χωρεῖ τὸν οἶνον?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Luke 8:23 συνεπληροῦντο

Post by Stephen Hughes »

For the record, while I think of it, while the thread is active, off-topic, and to avoid the misunderstandings that might arise by only mention those two, let me add that the third group of words about full / fill have to do with stuffing things into vessels, or of people absolutely full of something. They are μεστός (+gen. of the thing filled with), μεστότης, μεστόω (+acc. +gen. of the thing something is filled with), μέστωμα, μέστωσις. "Filled full" here in the sense of packed into all the available space, no space for anything else, usually used of vessels (some liquid) or people (virtue or vice).

The difference between μεστοῦν and πληροῦν is that μεστοῦν refers to filling till stuffed full so there is no space left, and πληροῦν means filling completely or entirely in every part of it.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Barry Hofstetter

Re: Luke 8:23 συνεπληροῦντο

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

συμπληρόω impf. pass. συνεπληρούμην (Hdt.+; ins, pap; TestSol 22:7; Philo, Joseph.; Just., D. 32, 3; Ath. 8, 1; 18, 3, R. 4 p. 52, 7) ‘fill up, fill completely’. In our lit. only pass. ‘become quite full’.
① to fill completely of a ship (equipped w. sailors: Arrian, Anab. 1, 19, 10; Menand. Ephes.: 783 Fgm. 4, 285 Jac. [in Jos., Ant. 9, 285]) that is being filled w. water in a storm be swamped συνεπληροῦντο they were being swamped Lk 8:23.
② fig., of time to arrive as the timely moment for an event to take place, fulfill, approach, come (πληρόω 2.—Herodian 7, 4, 1; BGU 1122, 22 [13 B.C.] ἐπὶ τοῦ συμπληρωθῆναι τοῦτον [τὸν χρόνον]; Jer 25:12 v.l.; Jos., Ant. 4, 176) ἐν τῷ συμπληροῦσθαι τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς ἀναλήμψεως when the days of his ἀνάλημψις (q.v.) were approaching Lk 9:51. ἐν τῷ συνπληροῦσθαι τὴν ἡμέραν τῆς πεντηκοστῆς when the day of Pentecost had come Ac 2:1 (so NRSV, REB; s. JRopes, HTR 16, 1923, 168–75).—M-M. s.v. συνπληρόω. TW.


Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 959). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

No where does it seem to have the meaning "being filled" in the sense of being occupied.
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Re: Luke 8:23 συνεπληροῦντο

Post by cwconrad »

Stephen Hughes wrote:For the record, while I think of it, while the thread is active, off-topic, and to avoid the misunderstandings that might arise by only mention those two, let me add that the third group of words about full / fill have to do with stuffing things into vessels, or of people absolutely full of something. They are μεστός (+gen. of the thing filled with), μεστότης, μεστόω (+acc. +gen. of the thing something is filled with), μέστωμα, μέστωσις. "Filled full" here in the sense of packed into all the available space, no space for anything else, usually used of vessels (some liquid) or people (virtue or vice).

The difference between μεστοῦν and πληροῦν is that μεστοῦν refers to filling till stuffed full so there is no space left, and πληροῦν means filling completely or entirely in every part of it.
While we're at it, I might mention the fact that πλήρης in Jn 1:14
Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ πατρός, πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας.
is indeclinable and evidently agrees with αὐτοῦ or μονογενοῦς -- see the note in BDAG s.v. πλήρης 2. I puzzled over this for years and wonder at it yet.

I might just add that in twenty years of participation in this community, this is possibly the most bizarre discussion I've ever viewed.

The usages of the adjective δεινός, "awesome, terrible" are perhaps as wide-ranging as those of the hydra-headed root πλεϝ, πλοϝ, πολϝ, πλη, κτλ., with all the extended senses of "fill", "full", "flow", "much," "many", etc. There was always the problem of how best to understand the adjective δεινός in the Sophoclean ode in the Antigone:
πολλὰ τὰ δεινὰ κοὐδὲν ἀνθρώπου δεινότερον ...
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

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Jonathan Robie
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Re: Luke 8:23 συνεπληροῦντο

Post by Jonathan Robie »

cwconrad wrote:I might just add that in twenty years of participation in this community, this is possibly the most bizarre discussion I've ever viewed.
Stick around, we're just warming up ;->
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
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Re: Luke 8:23 συνεπληροῦντο

Post by cwconrad »

Jonathan Robie wrote:
cwconrad wrote:I might just add that in twenty years of participation in this community, this is possibly the most bizarre discussion I've ever viewed.
Stick around, we're just warming up ;->
μετὰ φόβου καὶ τρόμου τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ σωτηρίαν ἐλπίζω.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
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Stephen Hughes
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Re: Luke 8:23 συνεπληροῦντο

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Barry Hofstetter wrote:No where does it seem to have the meaning "being filled" in the sense of being occupied.
Depending on what exactly you are trying to render, you could try καταλαβεῖν (The room was occupied.) (opp. χωρεῖν or κένος) or for sound, try κατέχειν. (Wailing filled the hall.). For time, perhaps you could try some form of (δια-/κατα-)τρίβειν (spend (all) one's time on) or ἀπασχολεῖν (be absorbed in something) (opp. σχολάζειν "to be at leisure", "to have one's time free"). It's not a straightforward one to render.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
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