[B-Greek] Fear of fear - 1Pe 3:6

Mark Lightman lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Sun May 2 10:07:09 EDT 2010


Hi, Oun,

Today's Modern Greek leaves the noun out and picks up
on the MNDEMIAN: φοβουνταν τιποτε (FOBOUNTAN TIPOTE.)
"They feared nothing, they were afraid of nothing at all." 
τιποτε in Modern Greek can mean "nothing" or "anything," but that
is implicit already in the classical meaning.  "They fear...what, pray
tell me?"  "What in the world did they ever fear...nothing at all."

We have a similar idiom in English where "He don't know jack"
means the same as "He knows jack."

They feared bupkes.   They were afraid to the extent of beans.
They feared not a whit. These chicas feared nada. 

 
 Mark L



FWSFOROS MARKOS




________________________________
From: Oun Kwon <kwonbbl at gmail.com>
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Sat, May 1, 2010 11:01:56 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Fear of fear - 1Pe 3:6

Thank Carl.

That helps lot.

I am a little disappointed by the lack of depth treatment by BDAG on
this word of NT hapax.

Oun Kwon.

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 7:37 PM, Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com> wrote:
> On Apr 30, 2010, at 7:05 PM, Oun Kwon wrote:
>> 1Pe 3:6b
>>
>> hHS EGENHQHTE TEKNA AGAQOPOIOUSAI
>> KAI MH FOBOUMENAI MHDEMIAN PTOHSIN
>>
>> It is hard to see what the phrase μὴ φοβούμεναι       μηδεμίαν πτόησιν is
>> trying to tell. (BDAG p. 895 PTOHSIS gives several glosses -
>> 'terrifying' 'intimidation' 'fear' 'terror'.)
>> Most English translations do not help much, while some do smooth it over.
>>
>> Is it possible understand this phrase something like 'fear of fear'?
>
> I don't find it in BDAG but I do find "flutter" in LSJ for the verb PTOEW, which appears to be a denominative verb from the root PET/POT/PT whence we derive PIPTW (fall), PETAMAI (fly), PTWSIS (grammatical "case" from "falling", PTWMA (corpse), etc. I think that PTOHSIS really means the "quivering" or "shudder" that is a physical manifestation of fear. That being the case, I would understand MHDEMIAN PTOHSIN not as an object or complement of FOBOUMENOI but rather as an adverbial accusative: "and not being afraid even so much as a shiver" or we might say, "not even so much as a frisson."
>
> Carl W. Conrad
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