[B-Greek] AKOUW with gen and acc (was AUTOU in Jo 9:6 - )
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sat Mar 19 13:35:56 EDT 2011
On Mar 19, 2011, at 1:15 PM, Beata Urbanek wrote:
> I came across this: [Paul Danove, A Comparison of the Usage of AKOUW and AKOUW- compounds in theSeptuagint and New Testament, Filología Neotestamentaria 14 (2001) 65-86]
> These results permit a reconsideration of traditional distributional rules that attempt to explain the presence of genitive and accusative case noun phrase objects. Such rules, generally rendered in three parts, cite classical rules and then describe divergences in LXX and NT usage:
> 1. that of or about which one hears is in the accusative,
> 2. the person speaking appears in the genitive,
> 3. the sound which one hears is in the genitive, unless it is a speech, LOGOS, which may be in either the genitive or the accusative.
> Attempts to adapt these rules for the study of the LXX and NT are of limited use.
> At the end he puts his reformulated rules.
>
> The article is here http://www.bsw.org/Filologia-Neotestamentaria/Vol-14-2001/A-Comparison-Of-The-Usage-Of-Akouw-And-Akouw-Compounds-In-The-Septuagint-And-New-Testament/416/
I think it's true enough that NT Koine doesn't conform with regularity to rules observed in Classsical Attic regarding AKOUW and its complements. Our problem here is whether we have sufficient evidence for CRIEIN with two accusatives and a genitive that's not a possessive. But usage of CRIEIN with two accusatives and a genitive that's not a possessive is still not comparable to usage of AKOUEIN with an accusative and a genitive.
It appears to me that opinions on this construction in John 9:6 are widely divergent. Personally I affirm yet once again that I don't find problematic AUTOU as possessive genitive construing with TOUS OFQALMOUS in the text EPECRISEN AUTOU TON PHLON EPI TOUS OFQALMOUS. I personally think that the Byzantine/Majority text displays a text that has been "corrected" by later scribes to conform better to what is thought to be preferable structure. I think it's also worth noting here that, for all the differences in the ways list-members have set forth and expounded this text, there is nevertheless not an ounce of difference regarding the MEANING of the clause in question. The question we continue to squabble over is, I guess, what did the original author actually write and what did he mean by writing it that way?
> Vasile Stancu wrote:
>>
>>> What about this (im)possibility: AUTOU works with EPEXRISEN as it
>>> would with HKOUSEN, for example.
>
> Carl W. Conrad
>
>
>> But AKOUW takes an accusative of the thing heard and a genitive of the
>> person heard: HKOUSA AUTOU THN FWNHN.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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