Greek Accents in Hebrews 1:1

QUESTION

Hi Dennis,

Hebrews. 1:1, Πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως

Hebrews 1:1 (NA27) Πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως πάλαι ὁ θεὸς λαλήσας τοῖς πατράσιν ἐν τοῖς προφήταις

Why are these two Greek adverbs accented differently? How can one remember—aside from rote memory—which is ultimate and which is penultimate?

RESPONSE

Your hope is forlorn. Unlike Latin, Greek has variable lemma accents. Non-verb lemma accent types (5) must largely be memorized with the vocabulary. Verb accents do not need to be memorized individually but follow rules. Unparsed lemmas have no variants to speak of but are statistically small. Your adverb examples fall in the adjective category.

The majority of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives are retentive and follow derivation rules, but the lemmas mostly need to be memorized although there are a few tricks for maybe 5% of them. There are about 4000 of these declensional lemmas as opposed to 25,000 standard inflections and 2,500 more nonstandard variant inflections. Since 2 thirds of these are recessive, you really only need to learn about 2,700. Daunting but gotta bite the bullet. No shortcut. Learning the accent rules only helps with the 23,000 regularly derived inflections, not the original 4000 declensional lemmas.

However, the above discussion only pertains to the 5 non-contextual accent types. The contextual accents involve proclitic, grave, and enclitic and affect about 40% of word occurrences, and there is a second set of complex contextual accent rules for these.

Many people like Mounce simply find both the 4000 declensional lemma accents and the two kinds of rules more trouble than they are worth and simply give up on learning GNT accents. It is a rational choice. We all save time somewhere unless we are learning a spoken language. Accents can be read properly without memorizing anything. However, the contextual accents form accent chains of 2 to 12 words which are interesting units in themselves if you want to see them as a kind of epiphenomenon on the text overlaying the punctuation chains and the syntax units. These chains can be identified with a few rules.

κρίναντες ἐπλήρωσαν in Acts 13:27

QUESTION

To me, both of these verbs κρίναντες ἐπλήρωσαν seem to be missing objects and the antecedents aren’t clear. Are there any tips and tricks in the grammar for translation or is it just a matter of getting the semantics right?

Acts 13:27 (NA27) οἱ γὰρ κατοικοῦντες ἐν Ἰερουσαλὴμ καὶ οἱ ἄρχοντες αὐτῶν τοῦτον ἀγνοήσαντες καὶ τὰς φωνὰς τῶν προφητῶν τὰς κατὰ πᾶν σάββατον ἀναγινωσκομένας κρίναντες ἐπλήρωσαν,

DENNIS’ RESPONSE

οἱ γὰρ κατοικοῦντες ἐν Ἱερουσαλὴμ

καὶ οἱ ἄρχοντες αὐτῶν

τοῦτον ἀγνοήσαντες

καὶ τὰς φωνὰς τῶν προφητῶν τὰς κατὰ πᾶν σάββατον ἀναγινωσκομένας

κρίναντες (τοῦτον)

ἐπλήρωσαν (τὰς φωνὰς τῶν προφητῶν)

Those who live at Jerusalem

and their rulers

since they did not recognize him

even though they read the words of the prophets every sabbath

condemned him anyway

and thereby fulfilled those words.

So there are five transitive nominative plural participial phrases before the finite verb of the independent clause in verse 27 in a simple, orderly syntax. The first two are the articular subject, and the others are anarthrous circumstantial participles to the plural verb. The objects of the first 3 verbs are supplied explicitly, but the expected objects of the last two transitive verbs are, as you observed, elliptical.

The ellipsis of subjects and objects is a salient feature of Greek not encountered in English which requires them to be explicit. What needs to be supplied for transitive verbs is the object (not the antecedents). The normal rule is to assume, the implicit objects to be those previously supplied to the immediately preceding verbs, but semantically in keeping with common sense. 

The antecedent of the pronoun τοῦτον is Christ, from the context. Christ was the one the Jews misunderstood and condemned (although they also did so to the prophets before him). So since Christ (τοῦτον) is the focus, he is the most natural to take as the implicit object of κρίναντες. However, the scriptural pattern for fulfilling is the scripture itself. So that is the most natural object to take for fulfilling.  

Greek had a minimalist habit of reusing words from the earlier context without repeating them. In this way, the natural interpretation for implicit objects of transitive verbs involves a combination of the practice of carrying the previous objects forward (like an echo or a copy) and the application of the expected language patterns and what works semantically in the context. This is not eisegesis.

Within this general framework, if you read the translations on Bible Hub, you will see a variety of minor variations that fit well semantically.

What to do with τε in Acts 12:17?

QUESTION

I’m wondering how to translate τε in this verse in Acts 12:17 in the Greek New Testament (GNT) NA27. I’m not used to seeing τε at the apparent end of the sentence, followed by a semicolon.

Acts 12:17 (NA27) κατασείσας δὲ αὐτοῖς τῇ χειρὶ σιγᾶν διηγήσατο [αὐτοῖς] πῶς ὁ κύριος αὐτὸν ἐξήγαγεν ἐκ τῆς φυλακῆς εἶπέν τε· ἀπαγγείλατε Ἰακώβῳ καὶ τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς ταῦτα. καὶ ἐξελθὼν ἐπορεύθη εἰς ἕτερον τόπον.

DENNIS’ RESPONSE

Here is a UBS and NA punctuation lesson for the Greek New Testament (GNT).

Obviously τε is not the last word in the independent clause because the following quote is the discourse object. Your confusion is actually over the ambiguous meaning of the Nestle Aland colon rather than the Greek grammar. The UBS punctuation for the same text is

Acts 12:17 (UBS) κατασείσας δὲ αὐτοῖς τῇ χειρὶ σιγᾷν διηγήσατο αὐτοῖς πῶς ὁ κύριος αὐτὸν ἐξήγαγεν ἐκ τῆς φυλακῆς, εἶπέν τε Ἀπαγγείλατε Ἰακώβῳ καὶ τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς ταῦτα. καὶ ἐξελθὼν ἐπορεύθη εἰς ἕτερον τόπον.

Notice that the UBS capitalizes the direct quote but the NA does not.

The NA colon is the punctuation for the START of the direct quote, among other things, since these Greek texts lack the quote marks of modern English. Sometimes the NA colon also signals the division between two independent clauses. (See Acts 12:5), which is what you thought it meant here.

When the postpositive coordinating conjunction τε and is the second word in the independent clause right before the direct quote, then a colon follows, as in Acts 19:3.

Acts 19:3 (NA27) εἶπέν τε· εἰς τί οὖν ἐβαπτίσθητε; οἱ δὲ εἶπαν· εἰς τὸ Ἰωάννου βάπτισμα.

A second source of your confusion, since you are unfamiliar with the NA and UBS punctuation rules, is that, although both the colon and comma may separate independent clauses or main clauses, often no punctuation is used there at all when a new clause occurs, unlike the English rules. As you see, the UBS uses a comma between the independent clauses, but the NA lacks any punctuation there in this sentence, although it uses the colon in Acts 12:5 for that purpose.

Isn’t ambiguity fun?

A 3-verse visit to Dalmanutha in Mark 8

QUESTION

Hi Dennis, What’s the rule for this “if” clause in Mark 8:12? I’m not sure how to translate it.

" καὶ ἀναστενάξας τῷ πνεύματι αὐτοῦ λέγει· τί ἡ γενεὰ αὕτη ζητεῖ σημεῖον; ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, εἰ δοθήσεται τῇ γενεᾷ ταύτῃ σημεῖον."

RESPONSE

This is an elliptical negation. See the non-elliptical Matthew 16:4 parallel. This is the if protasis=condition with an unspoken elliptical “then hell will freeze over” impossible apodosis=consequence=conclusion in an elliptical reductio ad absurdum construction. 

Matthew 16:4 (SBL GNT)

Γενεὰ πονηρὰ καὶ μοιχαλὶς σημεῖον ἐπιζητεῖ, καὶ σημεῖον οὐ δοθήσεται αὐτῇ εἰ μὴ τὸ σημεῖον Ἰωνᾶ. καὶ καταλιπὼν αὐτοὺς ἀπῆλθεν.

So the elliptical construction equates logically to an οὐ μή “certainly not” or “No way” denial of the expressed if condition based on the well-known reductio ad absurdum principle that if the conclusion is false and the conditional assertion is true then that proves that the premises=condition=protasis must be false. By Jesus’ day, the Jews had already been exposed to 300 years of Greek logic from their rulers and they already had the aposiopesis im construction from Hebrew (see Robertson’s Word Pictures).

As anticipated by his groan reaction to their deceitfulness, Jesus is giving a sharp answer back to a trap question. “You figure out the obvious conclusion for your selves.” Normally the questioner dominates the dialogue, but Jesus turns the tables. The hypocrites already have plenty of reliable reports of miracles and have proven that they, like Dives’ brothers, would not be converted even if they saw one themselves.

The false elliptical reductio ad absurdum construction is illustrated in Hebrews 3:11 and 4:3, 6:14. The advantage of our project Greek New Testament – Grammatical Commentary (GNT-GC) is that it gives a tour through the GNT of instances of constructions so the student can grasp the gist of them through example.

However, another advantage of GNT-GC is that it outlines the constructions in a way that places them in their larger setting so the learner can get a perspective. With the two attributes (specific grammatical relation and semantic function) there are 18 different constructions in GNT-GC for εἰ. The elliptical negative reductio ad absurdum construction is expanded within the larger elliptical εἰ setting of the interrogative εἰ construction which occurs in Matthew 12:10, 19:3, Mark 2:16, Acts 1:6, 19:2, 21:37 and Romans 2:17. Under this broader interpretation, Jesus is asking, “Do you really think you are going to manipulate me that way into performing a magic trick for your entertainment?”

In Matthew 9:27, how can the subject of the dependent clause (“τῷ Ἰησοῦ”) be dative?

QUESTION

In Matthew 9:27, how can the subject of the dependent clause (“Jesus”) be dative?

Καὶ παράγοντι ἐκεῖθεν τῷ Ἰησοῦ ἠκολούθησαν δύο τυφλοὶ κράζοντες καὶ λέγοντες ’Ελέησον ἡμᾶς, υἱὸς Δαυείδ. (Nestle 4th ed., 1937)

Καὶ παράγοντι ἐκεῖθεν τῷ Ἰησοῦ ἠκολούθησαν [αὐτῷ] δύο τυφλοὶ κράζοντες καὶ λέγοντες· ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς, υἱὸς Δαυίδ. (NA28)

DENNIS’ RESPONSE

παράγοντι is an oblique circumstantial participle taking its case from a dative object τῷ Ἰησοῦ, which takes its case from the dative-governing verb ἠκολούθησαν. That is the chain of syntactical case causality, even though it flows opposite the word order direction (the speaker was able to think ahead). Circumstantial participles have implicit subjects but lack syntactical grammatical subjects except for the genitive absolute. This is a useful general grammar rule in our project Greek New Testament – Grammatical Commentary (GNT-GC).

Dative τῷ Ἰησοῦ is also the implicit subject and reference source of παράγοντι. It is in the swing position between the two verbs. In this construction, it looks like τῷ Ἰησοῦ is the explicit subject of παράγοντι because they are concordant. It looks like τῷ Ἰησοῦ might be dative because παράγοντι is dative. And semantically it works for translators to think of it that way because the goal of the average GNT reader is to get the meaning over into English where thought begins. However, diagramming Greek as if it corresponded to the English translation patterns does not work; it is impossible. παράγοντι is not the verb head of the subject τῷ Ἰησοῦ and τῷ Ἰησοῦ is not the grammatical subject of παράγοντι.

Based on analogy, you previously ventured the opinion that this sort of construction was a dative absolute. The defect in that opinion is that “absolute” actually has a precise prior meaning. It means not case-determined by another word. παράγοντι is an oblique circumstantial participle because its case is determined by τῷ Ἰησοῦ instead of being absolute.

Matthew could have written the Greek sentence the way you think of it based on the English translation if he had wanted to. It would be Καὶ παράγοντος ἐκεῖθεν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἠκολούθησαν δύο τυφλοὶ. Matthew had the option to choose whether he wanted to make Jesus the subject of the participle or the main verb even though it is implicitly both. In Greek he must make a choice because of the case system in a way that uninflected English does not. He didn’t choose the way you think in English because oblique circumstantial is not an English construction. It is more idiomatic Greek than the genitive absolute. Nominative absolute is theoretically banned by the Chicago school, but everyone understands it anyway because it has been valid English for a thousand years, and they get its equivalence to Greek genitive absolute.

What the Matthew text actually says is “As he was going from there, two blind men followed Jesus,” not “As Jesus was going from there, two blind men follow him” although they are semantically equivalent. The goal of translators is not to preserve Greek syntax but to render idiomatic English; so they prefer the second sequence as better English, but we cannot read the English syntax back as a guide to the Greek syntax when we are labeling Greek grammatical relations. Theoretically, there is no such thing as a dative subject. That idea is probably a product of imposing English translation syntax on Greek.

However, human language is complex and issued by imperfect humans and may sometimes cross borders in exceptional fringe constructions and fuzz categories and rules even in the GNT. Consider Matthew 8:23,

Καὶ ἐμβάντι αὐτῷ εἰς τὸ πλοῖον ἠκολούθησαν αὐτῷ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ.

Here we have two different instances of αὐτῷ, one as the dative object and the first one as apparently the subject of ἐμβάντι. Since there is no other function for this first αὐτῷ, it may exceptionally be called a dative subject of the oblique participle. It is still not a dative absolute since its case is determined by the verb. Alternatively, one of the datives may be coded as a literary redundant repetition or resumption.

The model here is to make falsifiable definitions for grammatical relations and then test them (so that we start with clear concepts). If they are never violated over a large population, they are absolute rules. If there are a few exceptions, they are general rules (useful mnemonically) and we will provide lists, statistics and user interface access to the exceptions in the forthcoming GNT-GC app.

To illustrate how this works, I have coded 10 other participial subjects (out of over 4000 subjects) besides this one, often ἔκαστος, personalizing the plural to the individual. Probably the most dramatic one is Romans 1:27

ἄρσενες ἐν ἄρσεσιν τὴν ἀσχημοσύνην κατεργαζόμενοι

“men doing something shameful in men,”

although this one also might be coded as merely a literary redundant repetition of the main subject.

Translating “faith equally precious” in 2 Peter 1:1

QUESTION

I’m having trouble reconciling the translation “faith equally precious” in 2 Peter 1:1 with the adjective ἰσότιμον modifying πίστιν, which is outside of the participial phrase τοῖς ἰσότιμον ἡμῖν λαχοῦσιν. I don’t have a better alternative translation. Any insights?

2 Peter 1:1 – Συμεὼν Πέτρος δοῦλος καὶ ἀπόστολος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῖς ἰσότιμον ἡμῖν λαχοῦσιν πίστιν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ σωτῆρος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ

RESPONSE

Literalness vs. dynamic equivalency—you are opening a translational can of worms right off the bat.

Συμεὼν Πέτρος δοῦλος καὶ ἀπόστολος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῖς λαχοῦσιν πίστιν ἰσότιμον ἡμῖν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ σωτῆρος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (a couple of transpositions because ἰσότιμον πίστιν is a gapped phrase, a hyperbation).

Simon Peter, servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith equally precious to us both by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

I think Peter is describing the faith of/in Jesus Christ, that both he and his recipients have received, as being equally precious to him and them. The receivers of the faith are the addressees of the letter, and everything from τοῖς on is in the λαχοῦσιν articular participial phrase. Even though πίστιν occurs after λαχοῦσιν, it is not outside the λαχοῦσιν participial phrase because faith is the direct object, and because the participial phrase is determined by syntactical connections, not by position.

I suspect that the main stumbling block here is the meaning of ἡμῖν as a kind of prepositional object the hapax ἰσότιμον. In Greek, adverbs and adjectives can take dative or genitive objects like prepositions. I could give you a number of parallel verses where the attributive adjective takes a dative object like ἡμῖν (e.g., Heb. 6:7). The Grammatical Commentary (GC) has a particular grammatical relation for that kind of connection.

I imagine that what is troubling you most here is that none of the translations have translated it the way I did, which is quite literal and intuitive except for the word order. This lack of literal translation is probably because the translators did not believe that Peter meant exactly what he actually said. Apparently what they are uneasy about is the ἡμῖν. They think it should mean “a faith as precious as ours.” However, I disagree that this is the right translation because that would imply that there could be two equally precious faiths. Jerome also struggled with ἡμῖν:

Simon Petrus, servus et apostolus Jesu Christi, iis qui coæqualem nobiscum sortiti sunt fidem in justitia Dei nostri, et Salvatoris Jesu Christi.

He changed it to “to those who have received a faith coequal with us” (perhaps meaning “with ours”), in which he introduced the “with” idea and he stressed the sameness of the faith and audaciously removed the idea of precious.

Luther changes it to “Simon Petrus, ein Knecht und Apostel Jesu Christi, denen, die mit uns ebendenselben teuren Glauben überkommen haben in der Gerechtigkeit, die unser Gott gibt und der Heiland Jesus Christus” (“… to those who with us have received the exact same precious faith”), even though ἡμῖν is connected with ἰσότιμον and does not mean “with us.” He inherits the “with” idea from Jerome. The KJV follows Luther in this loose dynamic equivalency.

In order to see that Peter was probably not saying exactly what the translators have him saying, one useful technique is to back-translate the translation back into Greek, if such a construction can be found: πίστιν ἰσότιμον ἡμῖν (a faith equally precious to us) or πίστιν ἰσότιμον τῇ ὑμῶν (a faith of equal value to our own). For an example of the articular possessive, see 1 Corinthians 16:18. The value of the back-translation is to see that if Peter had meant what the translators say he meant, he had a way to do so without saying the something else that he actually said.

I have two responses to these translational liberties. First, translators sometimes think that the literal meaning is too obscure and use dynamic equivalencies, so that the translation will not be a riddle to the reader. Second, in this case the literal translation I have given actually makes sense and a dynamic equivalency is not semantically required. This might not be a satisfactory response, but I hope it gives you some insight into the most straightforward original syntax and translator choices.

I did not know the long history of what I consider minor mistranslation either until you asked the question focused on ἡμῖν and I looked at the set of translations in Bible Hub. With the tools and analysis methods of GC there is a systematic approach to analyzing syntax so that the GNT reader is not left floundering in the syntax ocean. 

It helps to have the syntax priorities sorted out. Verb phrases are the most important structures in syntax. The central classification of verbs (to know what kind of objects or predicate complements they take) is the verb type. Although I have only coded a quarter of the GNT, the verb type is coded for all verbs in the GNT lexicon (because it is so central). There are 14 verb types. λαχοῦσιν belongs to the most common verb type, the simple accusative transitive, i.e. actually taking an accusative object in the GNT. 

Once you know that and see that λαχοῦσιν is the only candidate to head accusative πίστιν, then direct object of λαχοῦσιν is the only option. How do you know that λαχοῦσιν is the only connection option (i.e., that it does not belong to the verb phrase to the left)? First, you see that there is no direct object to the right. Then you know that the first sentence of epistles always has three parts: the nominative sender, the dative addressee, and the (often nominal) salutation, in that order. Obviously dative λαχοῦσιν is the addressee with the salutation to follow. Salutations are either “Hail” or “May it be,” a link verb, and do not take accusative objects.

All this is syntactical thinking, which is not taught in grammar classes, which focus primarily on vocabulary and morphology. Wallace is different and actually presents a set of syntactical constructions. The defect of Wallace is that it is selective, not systematical and comprehensive. When you start with the GC project method of coding the connection and grammatical relation for every word in the GNT, you find that there are hundreds of other important but less frequent relations (like object of adjective) that Wallace cannot cover. Lexham in Logos also has the comprehensive coding project, but it is too generic and does not integrate it with a user-friendly set of rules and techniques to equip the student to understand how the grammatical relations are necessary consequences rather than mere classifications mysteriously arrived at and supplied by the expert authoritative coding service.

These comparisons are not invidious. They are merely a statement of fact that syntax is an infant science not yet having arrived at goals that most would share if they could express them, which are very ambitious, which GC talks about but also has not yet systematized or demonstrated either. Hence the open-endedness of the GC system.

Why πᾶς ὁ in 1 John 3:6?

QUESTION

Hi Dennis, I’m curious as to why John includes the ὁ in πᾶς ὁ in 1 John 3:6?

1 John 3:6

πᾶς ὁ ἐν αὐτῷ μένων οὐχ ἁμαρτάνει· πᾶς ὁ ἁμαρτάνων οὐχ ἑώρακεν αὐτὸν οὐδὲ ἔγνωκεν αὐτόν.

NA 27 on Olive Tree

RESPONSE

Πᾶς is a predicate position adjective in these two articular phrases.

Πᾶς is the most frequent adjective in the Greek New Testament (GNT). It is one of the 10 predicate position attributives (as opposed to all the other attributive position adjectives), which means that if the head is articular, it is almost always in the first or second attributive position.

With nouns, the head may be articular or anarthrous (more often). However, with prepositional heads of πᾶς, as here, the preposition is never anarthrous. With participles, the ratio is 63 to 1 in favor of articular (the one exception is Second Thessalonians 2:4). The reason for the article on the preposition is that the article is necessary to supply the case, which is proto-function (every grammatical relation that takes a declensional has a particular case or case rule). The reason for the articular preference for the participle (over the noun) is that anarthrous participles are generally adverbial while articular participles are generally substantival or attributive. The noun can never be attributive so it needs no article to signal this distinction.

These familiar patterns are habits of speech that facilitate communication through multiple redundant reinforcing signals between the speaker and hearer. They distinguish the idiomatic native speaker from the novice and are learned unconsciously by children at the receptive period.

Triple Infinitive in Acts 15:5

Question

I do have a question about Acts 15:5,

δεῖ περιτέμνειν αὐτοὺς παραγγέλλειν τε τηρεῖν τὸν νόμον Μωϋσέως.

In the above verse there are three infinitives. The first two have no copulative between them, but the third has the copulative τε separating it from the first two. δεῖ appears to govern not the closer infinitive, but the more distant infinitive, which is unnatural. This would seem to be so from the context, as it makes the most sense: “It is necessary to command them to be circumcised and to keep the law of Moses” rather than “It is necessary to circumcise them to command and to keep the law of Moses.”

There does not seem to be a grammatical reason to prefer the former translation, only the contextual reason. Am I missing something?

Response

There are two Greek constructions that are not intuitive to the English speaker

1. δεῖ and the it-cleft

2. the postpositive τε and what it coordinates.

It is necessary to circumcise them and order them to keep the law of Moses.

They must be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses.

The direct discourse δεῖ takes a compound infinitive subject, the first two infinitives. The third infinitive is not coordinated and not a dependent of δεῖ.

The first two infinitives are the compound subject of δεῖ, and the third infinitive is the indirect discourse object of the second infinitive (and is not coordinated).

The English translation uses the it-cleft, but the Greek does not.

To circumcise them and order them to keep the law of Moses is binding.

Even though τηρεῖν may be semantically regarded as a subject of δεῖ (it is necessary for them to keep), it is intermediated by παραγγέλλειν, (it is necessary to command them to keep) which is its syntactical head, because of the exact point that Luke is communicating (the kinds of requirements that the Judaizers thought were to be given as instructions to proselytes to Judeo-Christianity). The Temple still stood and they were not yet aware of the break with the Old Covenant that the incarnation caused due to the completion/termination of the animal sacrifice.

The enclitic τε is a postpositive coordinating conjunction for the two subject infinitives but does not go between them because it is postpositive and goes in the second position of the second subject (its matrix), which it coordinates with the first subject. τε has nothing to do with the third infinitive. If it coordinated the third infinitive τηρεῖν, it would follow it. The sentence is completely regular and unequivocal. There is no other way to say it with τε, and there is no other possible valid interpretation option for it either. I do not see any variation among the translators in BibleHub on what is coordinated. If Luke had used the optional καί instead of τε it would have gone between the first two infinitives as in English and it would have seemed natural and intuitive. The trick for the English reader of the GNT is to move the τε=and in front of the word that it is behind.

It is common for καί but unusual for τε to coordinate infinitives (9 of the 10 instances of infinitive+τε are in Acts/Luke , and I had not coded any of them in GNT-GC, as opposed to 146 instance of καί+infinitive and 5 instances of infinitive+δέ.). δέ is a postpositive coordinating conjunction somewhat like τε but much more apt to coordinate participles and finite verbs and not enclitic. τε is the most common word for “both” with infinitives (twice as common as καί), but δέ is not so used with infinitives. δέ often has an adversative flavor like ἀλλά.

Some frequencies:

• καί (9161, 75%)

• δέ (2792, 23%)

• τε (215, 2%)

All 3 coordinating conjunctions have four functions:

1. coordinating conjunction 66%

2. main conjunction 24%

3. adverbial also/even 9%

4. both 1%.

Language Pattern Evidence in Romans 9:5

QUESTION

Can you give an example how language pattern evidence (i.e., construction) helps decide exegesis and translation?

RESPONSE

Romans 9:5 gives a reason for studying language patterns (constructions) as given in our forthcoming project, Greek New Testament - Grammatical Commentary (GNT-GC).

Is the Justification for the interpretation of Rom 9:5 based on imagination or construction precedence?

Romans 9:5 (ESV)

To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

ὧν οἱ πατέρες, καὶ ἐξ ὧν ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων Θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν.

Attributive means an adjectival modifying a substantival head. Most modern translations like the ESV take ὁ ὢν to be an attributive participle modifying Christ, thus giving Rom 9:5 a trinitarian interpretation. It seems pretty straightforward to them. The articular participle is regularly attributive and attributive participles are regularly translated as WHO with a finite verb.

Most modern translates take Θεὸς to be the substantival predicate complement of ὁ ὢν. This also seems pretty straightforward to them. The verb to be regularly takes a substantival predicate complement.

The translators are quite comfortable with this translation: It is orthodox; they have grammatical precedents; they do not stray outside the consensus.

GNT-GC constructions, however, introduce a new, previously unavailable tool to evaluate interpretations. The simple question is: does the proposed construction have precedents or is it unprecedented. An unprecedented interpretation is not necessarily wrong, but if a highly precedented interpretation is available the unprecedented interpretation is very suspect.

The construction proposed by the translators is the substantival predicate complement of the link participle ὢν. There are 23 such participial constructions coded in the quarter of the GNT coded by GNT-GC. They are mostly circumstantial participles, and none is attributive. These constructions can be listed and examined.

Likewise the construction proposed by the translators is the attributive participle ὢν. There are 20 such participial constructions coded in the quarter of the GNT coded by GNT-GC. None of them takes a substantival predicate complement.

Likewise, the coded GNT contains 34 attributive relative clauses with the verb to be that take substantival predicate complements. These constructions can be listed and examined.

So it is clear enough that the attributive participles and participles taking predicate complements are common enough individually, it is also clear that the combination of the two required by the translation/exegesis is unprecedented.

Why would Greek speakers avoid combining two common grammatical constructions into the same grammatical construction? The answer is probably complexity. Although the attributive participle is often translated as a relative clause, both in English and modern Greek, it is only equivalent in simple constructions, not difficult ones, the way the translators are combining them. Interpreters are forced to use their imaginations to translate. However, constructions provide a tool to check imagination against an objective reality that was previously unavailable to translators.

The Greek is actually "Christ being over all God blessed”, not “Christ who is over all God blessed”. English and Greek allow the second phrase. English does not allow the first one because it overburdens the attributive participle; apparently Greek makes the same distinction.

The main alternative to the trinitarian interpretation of Rom 9:5 is elliptical, creating a separate main clause “Blessed be God forever” along the lines of “Blessed is the coming Kingdom of our father David”. These constructions are nominal with an elliptical verb, requiring the verb is to be supplied. This is the non-trinitarian interpretation chosen by GNT-GC because it is better established by precedence.

Romans 9:5 (KJV)

Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

The King James translators hesitated to give the modern trinitarian interpretation of Rom 9:5, possibly because they did not find a precedent or possibly because the general lack of explicit trinitarian passages in Paul. However the standard English meaning of God blessed is “blessed by God” which is not what the Greek says.

One of the 20 attributive participial constructions of to be, does take an adjectival predicate complement (not a substantival predicate complement): 2 Cor 11:31, and it is quite similar to Rom 9:5 in some ways.

2 Corinthians 11:31

The God and Father of our Lord Jesus, who is blessed for ever, knows that I do not lie.

It may be studied to see if it might form a looser precedence for the modern trinitarian interpretation of Rom 9:5. GNT-GC does not claim that precedence studies creates definitive answers to cruxes, only that it is objective evidence supporting options that ranks higher than grammatical imagination concerning possibilities.

GNT-GC contains verse notes for some cruxes. The GNT-GC notes use language pattern precedence as partial criteria for selecting preferred interpretation options. Head-depedent and grammatical relations diagramming forces choice and eliminates the possibility of ambiguity inherent in translations and commentaries in general. Note that constructions depend on precise grammatical descriptions of the constructions that the translators select to support the translations. Commentaries seldom supply such exact grammatical descriptions. The GNT-GC objective constraints tightens up such arguments.

Questions on John 6:59

QUESTION

I have two questions on this verse.

1. John only mentions the word synagogue twice in his gospel and both times it is anarthous and in the same prepositional phrase (John 18:20). Robertson seems to say that John is using it as we would say, “in church.” Do you agree with this?

2. Could you remind me again the rule for translating an aorist indicative with a present participle?

John 6:59 GNT

59 Ταῦτα εἶπεν ἐν συναγωγῇ διδάσκων ἐν Καφαρναούμ.

These things he said in the synagogue while teaching in Capernaum.

RESPONSE

In general συναγωγῇ could refer to any gathering, including the sanhedrin (John 11:47), but probably in Capernaum it was referring to the Jewish synagogue building itself, whose foundations are preserved. Jesus gathered in the garden with his disciples (JN 18:2). In the other general reference I do not see any reason to confine it to the designated buildings because he spoke to them in many gatherings outside. The Christians had a synagogue (gathering place of assembly) in James, probably in Jerusalem.

The anarthrous object of preposition (OP) is not special and is not correlated with the meaning “in church.” A higher percentage of OP are anarthrous, and a higher percentage of subjects are articular.

The rule is that the tense of the circumstantial participle is relative to the head verb, not absolute. If the participle is present and the head verb is aorist, the participle is contemporary. “And he said in the synagogue while (he was) teaching in Capernaum.”

If the circumstantial participle is aorist, its time precedes the time of the head verb.

— Dennis Kenaga