[B-Greek] AUTOU in Jo 9:6
Vasile Stancu
stancu.c.vasile at gmail.com
Sat Mar 19 02:14:19 EDT 2011
I understand this, only I have tried to understand also the principle
that might stand behind the fact that sometimes the subject of certain
verbs may be in the genitive (AKOUW), or dative (AKOLOUW, PISTEUW),
instead of the accusative, as in most of the other cases. The image
that I have of such occurencies is that this construction indicates
some kind of indirectness of the action: I do not really hear you, but
I hear what you produce which my ears can receive (e.g., voice), or my
brains can process (e.g., words), therefore I hear 'something of you';
I do not really follow you, or believe you, but I follow perhaps, or
believe, the teachings that I get from you.
Why not the same in the case of EPEXRISEN? Not enough evidence? I
would not be sursprised to find out that this is a kind of
construction which was mostly used in colloquial communication, which
explains why it is not found in philosophers' work or other kinds of
elevated literature.
Vasile Stancu
2011/3/18 Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>:
>
> On Mar 18, 2011, at 3:38 PM, Vasile Stancu wrote:
>
>> What about this (im)possibility: AUTOU works with EPEXRISEN as it
>> would with HKOUSEN, for example. EPEXRISEN AUTOU would therefore mean
>> 'he anointed him', as HKOUSEN AUTOU means 'he heard him'. Why not
>> EPEXRISEN AUTON? Because Jesus anointed somewhat 'a part of him',
>> i.e., his eyes, as in the case of HKOUSEN AUTOU, where he heard
>> something of him, e.g., his voice, or his words. If he had wanted to
>> refer directly to the 'object' of the anointment, he would have said,
>> 'EXRISEN TOUS OFQALMOUS AUTOU', as in the case of AKOUW, where we may
>> have HKOUSEN TON LOGON.
>
> But AKOUW takes an accusative of the thing heard and a genitive of the
> person heard: HKOUSA AUTOU THN FWNHN. The verb EPICRIEIN
> appears only in the two verses of John 9 under discussion in the GNT.
> LSJ cites EPICRIEIN used with an accusative of the person or surface
> anointed and an instrumental dative of the mixture that is smeared
> ("smear X {acc} with Y {dat}). Unless someone attempts a TLG
> search for EPICRIEIN, the evidence available is rather sparse.
>
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
>
>
>
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list