[B-Greek] Adverbs

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Wed Mar 30 12:39:35 EDT 2011


On Mar 30, 2011, at 11:26 AM, Iver Larsen wrote:

> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carl Conrad" <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
> To: "=)" <p1234567891 at gmail.com>
> Cc: "B-Greek List" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: 30. marts 2011 11:53
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Adverbs
> 
>>>> 
>>>>> As for the adjectives, are "euriskei outos prwtos" and "prwton euriskei
>>>>> outos" equivalent then?
>>>> 
>>>> Well, yes -- except that Greek idiom prefers the former. That is to say,
>>>> it tends to use the adjectival form of an ordinal  in the nominative rather
>>>> than an ordinal adverb with a verb of action.
>>>> 
>>>> Hmm I see. Is there a slight difference in emphasis then, or is it
>>> completely identical?
>> 
>> 
>> They might be identical in meaning, but the Greek author would
>> ordinarily write hEURISKEI hOUTOS PRWTOS, not PRWTON hEURISKEI
>> hOUTOS. That is to say, the latter is not what a Greek would ordinarily
>> say, although he might conceivably write PRWTON MEN hEURISKEI
>> hOUTOS ... EPEITA DE (ALLO TI PRATTEI).
>> 
> 
> This question originally related to John 1:41 which in the NA reads:
> εὑρίσκει οὗτος πρῶτον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τὸν ἴδιον Σίμωνα
> hEURISKEI hOUTOS PRWTON TON ADELFON TON IDION SIMWNA
> This one (he) first finds his (own/real) brother, Simon.
> 
> The original hand of Aleph wrote πρῶτος PTWTOS. It was corrected later in the Aleph ms, and it has very little mss support.

But the Majority Text has PRWTOS. Tischendorf has it too.

> 
> Looking at all the examples of PRWTOS and PRWTON in the NT, PRWTOS seems to refer to "first in position." It occurs with implicit or explicit stative verbs (Mat 10:2, 20:27, Mrk 9:35, 10:44, John 1:15, 30, Rom 10:19, 1 Tim 1:15, 2:13). In connection with a verb of action, PRWTON is used in the sense of this action being the first or happening before another action. (Too many examples to list.) If PRWTOS occurs with a verb of action, it refers to a position as in John 20:4 (John came before Peter. John did not do the action of coming before doing another action.) In Acts 26:23, Christ was the first one to resurrect. He did not resurrect before doing another action.

This is another instance where I would protest against supposing that the GNT is an adequate database for Koine usage in a matter of this sort. As a guess, I would expect to find the adjective with a verb of action when it refers to temporal sequence in more literary Greek, and that the adverbial form PRWTOS might be more common in colloquial usage.

BDF #243:

(2) PREDICATE ADJECTIVE CORRESPONDING TO AN ADVERB (OR PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE)

243.  In classical Greek a predicate adjective appears in certain expressions added to the predicate which correspond to an adverb or prepositional phrase in English. This idiom is rare in the NT, most of the instances being in Lk. The adjective μόνος and the adverb μόνον, which have already grown close in classical, are occasionally confused.—Mayser II 2, 173f., 174f.

Adj. of time: δευτεραῖοι ἤλθομεν ‘on the second day’ A 2


> PRWTOS is often used substantively with the article to mean "the first one." A reasonably close parallel to John 1:41 is found in 1 John 4:19:
> 
> ὅτι αὐτὸς πρῶτος ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς.
> hOTI AUTOS PRWTOS HGAPHSEN hHMAS
> Since he loved us first.
> 
> It does not mean that God loved us before doing another action, but he was the first to love us. After that, we can then love him.
> 
> Coming back to John 1:41, it does not mean that Andrew was the first to find Peter, but rather that the first thing Andrew did before doing anything else was to find Peter. That is why PRWTON fits here better than PRWTOS, a scribal accident in Aleph*.
> 
> Iver Larsen
> 
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Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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