[B-Greek] Justin and objective genitives

Ehrman, Bart D behrman at email.unc.edu
Tue Mar 8 11:07:39 EST 2011


Stephen,

    Thanks, these are useful.  They all seem to me to mean "Memoirs that (ultimately) derive from X" rather than simply "Memoirs that are about X."  Do you agree?

-- Bart

Bart D. Ehrman
James A. Gray Professor
Department of Religious Studies
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

http://www.bartdehrman.com







-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Carlson [mailto:stemmatic at gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 10:49 AM
To: Ehrman, Bart D
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Justin and objective genitives

On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 5:04 AM, Ehrman, Bart D <behrman at email.unc.edu> wrote:
>    my question is really whether the phrase “Memoir + genitive” can mean “Memoir
>that is about X” as opposed to, say, “Memoir that is written by X” or “Memoir that is
>owned by X” etc.   And if it can mean “memoir that is about X” what analogies do we
>have for the usage, apart from instances where the noun is an “active” term of some kind?

Based on a quick search that threatens to consume too much of my time,
the closest example of this I could find is Athenaeus, Deipnosophists,
13.43: καὶ ἄλλων δὲ ἑταιρῶν ἀπομνημονεύματα ὁ Μάχων συνήγαγεν [1]
("And Macho gathered the 'memoirs' of the other courtesans"), which in
context seem to relate to stories about these women and their witty
sayings.

Similarly, Galen has a reference to the "memoirs of Herophilus and his
house," which refer to medical teachings by Herophilus et al. as
complied by Bacchius.

Perhaps in this category also belongs the "memoirs of Epictetus,"
written down by Arrian.  Their content is not really Epictetus's life,
but Epictetus's own sayings.

Despite these examples, the personal genitive often refers to the
person making/writing the memoirs (e.g., Xenophon, Stilpo & Zeno,
Alexinus, Favorinus, etc.).

I've only looked at about half the examples of this term (in
chronological order).  It is well possible that further examples can
be adduced.

Stephen Carlson

[1] KAI ALLWN DE hETAIRWN APOMNHMONEUMATA hO MACWN SUNHGAGEN.
--
Stephen C. Carlson
Graduate Program in Religion
Duke University


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