From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 21 2001 - 07:38:30 EST
At 10:34 PM -0800 1/20/01, dixonps@juno.com wrote:
>Aren't the aorist middle infinitive and aorist passive infinitive forms
>the same?
No. Aorist middle = NIYASQAI; the aorist passive infinitive, if there is
one, would be NIFQHNAI. And although there's an active NIPTW, the 17
instances of this verb in the GNT don't display a passive. From my reading
in Suzanne Kemmer's _The Middle Voice_ (about which I'll have something
more to say in a few days), this is one of a number of "grooming" verbs
that are likely to be middle voice in any language that marks middle forms.
>If so, then why do most translations render NIYASQAI in Jn 13:10 as a
>middle when the washing being done in the context is passive (the feet of
>Peter being washed by Jesus)?
>I checked 8 translations or so, and found only the New American Bible
>(NAB) rendering it passively.
text: LEGEI AUTWi hO IHSOUS: hO LELOUMENOS OUK ECEI CREIAN EI MH TOUS PODAS
NIYASQAI, ALL' ESTIN KAQAROS hOLOS; KAI hUMEIS KAQAROI ESTE, ALL' OUCI
PANTES.
One thing to realize, Paul, is that translation normally is a matter of
putting something into the more natural expression in the target language.
Certainly a more literal translation of this verse shows that where the
verb appears in the original, it does in fact have middle force: "Jesus
says to him: 'The one who has been cleansed doesn't have need to wash
himself except for the feet, but is clean altogether, and you are clean,
but not all of you.'" I take it that LELOUMENOS is genuinely
middle-passive--i.e. could be translated "the one who has been cleansed"
(passive) or "the one who has gotten himself cleansed" (middle), while
NIYASQAI really can only be middle ("wash oneself/get oneself washed")--yet
"get oneself washed" is a notion that goes over into English most naturally
as a passive: "be washed."
In general I think it's really difficult for English speakers to appreciate
the distinctive force of middle-voice expressions in Greek because they
think of the middle pretty much in terms of full-scale reflexives.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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