[B-Greek] hA in Col 2:17a

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Mar 2 06:13:48 EST 2004


It's SKIA, not SKEIA; I've made the corrections in the transliteration.

At 9:51 PM +1100 3/2/04, Doug &Val McEachern wrote:
>Greetings one and all.  This is my first post here, being at the 'b' part
>of basic in my efforts to learn at home, NT Greek.
>
>I realise that I am jumping ahead of my knowledge level here, however is
>it not true that one develops an interest/need which leads to learning
>rather that the otherway round?
>
>I have limited resources as yet, a text book poorly written I.M.H.O. and a
>basic-ish lexicon.
>In looking at Col 2:17 (a)  I see   hA ESTIN SKIA TWN MELLONTWN.
>I think ESTIN = (it) is, 3rd person singular present tense of the verb,
>'to be'; SKIA = shadow, but I have found no information on what either the
>meaning or the influence of     hA  has on ESTIN or any other of the text.
>If my understanding of ESTIN is correct, hA seems to drastically alter it
>somehow going by comparison of various English translations.  Also, since
>ESTIN is followed by SKEIA I gather there is no hard and fast rule
>regarding the movable (Nu)?
>One more question please, since Paul is talking about the observance of
>holy days, feasts and Sabbaths, why is ESTIN used and not EISTIN 3rd
>person plural?
>
>Any help will be greatly appreciated.

What you don't realize here is a principle of ancient Greek grammar that is
regularly observed in classical Attic, and more generally than not observed
still in Koine: neuter plural subjects takes a singular verb. So yes, ESTIN
is 3d sg. and hA ESTIN would be Englished as "which are ..." hA is the
neuter plural relative pronoun with the antecedent being the several
matters listed in verse 16: food, drink, festival and sacred days. The
plural of the verb would be EISIN (not EISTIN). As for the movable Nu,
older Greek practice was to use it either at the end of a sequence when
there's a pause or when the following word begins with a vowel, but there's
far less consistency about that in Koine.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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