[b-greek] Re: Luke 23:43

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Tue Apr 03 2001 - 17:57:31 EDT


At 1:50 PM -0700 4/3/01, Dave Washburn wrote:
>> Dear Friends,
>>
>> I had a question re: Luke 23:43. The use of SEMERON "today" as used by
>> Jesus in addressing the thief on the cross...does the context determine that
>> this meant that the thief would be with Jesus in paradise that very **same**
>> day? I surveyed other parts in Luke where SEMERON is used and it seems to
>> indicate the present day in each given case as in Luke 2:11 and Luke 4:21 to
>> mention a few. Some try to tranlate the passage, "Truly, truly is say to you
>> **today**, You shall be with me in paradise." The punctuation after the word
>> "today" seems to only place Jesus' statement at the present moment he spoke
>> these words. This would appear to be redundant and unnecessary. I understand
>> that the earliest MSS of the NT had no punctuation, thus punctuation really
>> is not a factor here except the context and the usage of words in relation
>> to the given context they appear in. Many thanks in advance for your
>> comments.
>
>Hi Tony,
>The question is whether SHMERON as an adverbial more
>commonly occurs at the beginning of a clause or at the end; it is
>also instructive to investigate its relation to LEGW. The word
>appears 41 times in the NT, most of which are pretty much
>irrelevant to the question at hand. Mark 14:29 puts it near LEGW,
>and in this instance it is part of the clause after LEGW, not part of
>the LEGW clause. Likewise for Luke 4:21 where Jesus began to
>LEGEIN that SHMERON this is fulfilled etc. Luke 5:26 may or
>may not be relevant, it's hard to tell. James 4:13 is another
>example. I couldn't find any similar structures in the LXX. It would
>appear, then, that LEGW SOI SHMERON, if it is a validly-used
>construction at all, was very uncommon. My own view is that it is
>nonexistent, and that the comma should go after SOI as in the
>majority of translations.

I was myself of that opinion at one time, but I've shifted on this one; the
discussion has been had before, most recently a year ago this January, to
be specific January 14-15, 2000. I suggest you check the archives for those
dates to read the reasons why this seems more likely.

The subject-headers for that thread are:

        SHMERON in Luke 23:43 and
        SHMERON in Luke 23:43 (a long palinode).

(The "palinode" was mine--my reversal of position on this issue).

-- 

Carl W. Conrad Department of Classics/Washington University cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

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