[B-Greek] Justin and objective genitives
James Ernest
j.d.ernest at bc.edu
Mon Mar 7 22:04:50 EST 2011
fwiw, a blog post on this question last year by a Marquette PhD whose diss
is on GosPet:
http://earliestchristianity.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/did-justin-martyr-cite-the-gospel-of-peter/
<http://earliestchristianity.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/did-justin-martyr-cite-the-gospel-of-peter/>James
Ernest
On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 8:03 PM, Alastair Haines <haines at alastairs.com>wrote:
> Dear Professor Ehrman,
>
> it seems you are not satisfied with Stanton (2004:100-101,
> http://books.google.com.au/books?id=A7wNGMrAiD0C&pg=PA100 ), who notes
> Boanerges is not found in Matthew and Luke, but is found in Mark. Fair
> enough.
>
> Is it fair to say, however, that the sentence grammar alone need not
> resolve the intended reference of the pronoun, here? Participant reference
> in the prior context may well have contributed to presuppositions Justin
> relied on his readers utilizing to resolve the "ambiguity" (perhaps
> participant reference or perhaps other background information assumed in the
> discourse).
>
> For what it's worth, I for one am happy to follow Harnack, Stanton and
> yourself that autos here refers to Peter. Whether that, in turn, refers to
> the canonical gospel of Mark (so Stanton), or to the gospel of Peter (so
> yourself) seems like an intriguing *historical* question.
>
> Although I don't like pushing for a decisive grammatical point here any
> more than the others who've replied, in favour of your proposed "action
> noun", I would think, is its transparent analysability: that is, it's not
> hard to construe a "verbal" semantic notion from its component morphemes, as
> an "abstracted action". "A document" is hardly an action noun by default in
> English, but again, I would think, is quite readily construed as such in
> certain contexts, because of its association with the verb "to document".
>
> Best regards,
> alastair
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ehrman, Bart D" <behrman at email.unc.edu
> >
> To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 8:12 AM
> Subject: [B-Greek] Justin and objective genitives
>
>
>
> Greekers,
>>
>> There is a much disputed passage in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho,
>> which may indicate (or not) that he was familiar with a Gospel of Peter:
>>
>> Καὶ τὸ εἰπεῖν μετωνομακέναι αὐτὸν Πέτρον ἕνα τῶν ἀποστολῶν, καὶ γεγράφθαι
>> ἐν τοῖς ἀπομνημονεύμασιν αὐτοῦ γεγενημένον καὶ τοῦτο, μετὰ καὶ ἄλλους δύο
>> ἀδελφοῦς, υἱοῦς Ζεβεδαίου ὄντας, ἐπωνομακέναι ὀνόματι Βοανεργές, ὅ ἐστιν
>> υἱοῖ βροντῆς.... Dial 106.3
>>
>> Justin refers to the “Memoirs” on fifteen occasions in his writings;
>> most of the time the term occurs with a genitive of origin or source: “the
>> Memoirs of the apostles.” In one instance Justin states unequivocally what
>> he means – these are “the Gospels”: οἱ γὰρ ἀπόστολοι ἐν τοῖς γενομένοις ὑπ’
>> αὐτῶν ἀπομνημονεύμασιν, ἅ καλεῖται εὐαγγέλια (I Apol. 66.3).
>>
>> In the passage I’m interested in, Dialogue 106.3, the debate is over
>> whether he is referring to the Gospel of Peter (presumably, though not
>> certainly, the same as discovered in the Akhmim fragment in 1886-87), the
>> Gospel of Mark (as the “memoirs of Peter” as in Papias), or the “Gospel of
>> Jesus.” In the latter case, the genitive in the phrase ἐν τοῖς
>> ἀπομνημονεύμασιν αὐτοῦ is some kind of objective genitive – the Gospel that
>> has Jesus as its object.
>>
>> My question is not about the relative plausibility of any of these
>> options per se (I think he’s referring to a Gospel of Peter and, personally,
>> find the Mark option implausible), but about the claim that this is probably
>> (or could be) an objective genitive. An objective genitive, of course, is
>> used with nouns that imply some kind of action: love, hate, vision, and so
>> on. Does απομνημονευματα count as a noun of action?
>>
>>
>> n Bart Ehrman
>>
>> Bart D. Ehrman
>> James A. Gray Professor
>> Department of Religious Studies
>> University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
>>
>> http://www.bartdehrman.com<http://www.bartdehrman.com/>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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