Ben C Smith

Kai plus the future perfect may be found in Leviticus 13.45 and Hosea 12.1 (both in the LXX).

There are quite a few of these, but most of the verbs are those verbs with irregular tense patterns (like ιστημι).

No competent translator would have any very serious problem translating either the future perfect or the perfect passive. I am not sure I understand you.

This is exactly what is not clear to me from the rest of the passage.

I do not understand you here. The Greek is easier to translate than your English.

Where did the Matthean writer find this statement? I am not following you (which may be because I have been focusing on the posts directed toward me in particular, not so much on those addressed to the_cave, Amaleq13, or ynquirer).

And yet it does not.

Ben.

spin

I did say "nt" for a reason!

That's why I said "Or much easier, kai plus pluperfect?"

Whether examples can be found or not in a limited text will not change the fact that the language can generate the form.

Contrary to your view, there aren't many opportunities in Matthew for epexegetical kai. I just looked through Matthew for explanatory material -- starting with an epexegetical kai -- that has been added in to Marcan fabric and the Matthean writer tends to rewrite Mark to reduce it rather than expand it. The only case I think I've individuated is in Mt 17:2 which states that Jesus was transfigured and our writer has explained "and his face shone like the sun". This is not found in the Marcan source, but it has been added as an explanation of Jesus being transfigured. This is not as grammatically complex as the explanation given in 4:13-14, but it should show that it is something that the writer did do.

The complexity of the clause structure governed by the epexegetical kai is ultimately irrelevant. You've shown that such structures exist and are frequent. The generative nature of the language would permit their use governed by an epexegetical kai.

Let's understand what is not clear to you from what I wrote:

1. You do accept "the functional synonymy of Zebulun and Naphtali with Galilee", don't you?
   
2. Do you accept that "the departure to Galilee is to be understood as the move to Zebulun and Naphtali"?
   
3. Ahh, perhaps it is the transition that "the move from Nazara is the move to Galilee." If this is the problem, is the prophecy not given so as to justify the move from Nazara to Capernaum? Does the move not imply -- through the Isaian prophecy -- the arrival of the light in Galilee?

The epexegetical kai is a very familiar structure for users of Semitic languages. Explanations are regularly given in Hebrew with such a structure. We usually call it parallelism. When in 4.12 we find reference to moving to Galilee and in 4.13 moving to Zebulun and Naphtali, we have an unmissable Semitic parallelism, which has voice in Greek in the epexegetical kai.

Take the first finite clause: "You're not answering the question". You should understand that. The question specifically included the phrase "such an explanation", and that phrase I attempted to clarify for your benefit, "ie functionally equivalent to the epexegetical additive explanation". What you needed to do was add in at the same position an explanation of the withdrawal/departure into Galilee.

From the earlier form of the Matthean gospel.

This statement doesn't actually provide anything useful here. Perhaps you could expand. Are you reading it in the context of "the conflict between the hometowns Nazara and Capernaum"?... as in...


spin

Ben C Smith

You are right; I glanced over that specification. I found none in the NT.

I do not recognize this as my view.

I have accepted this at least for the sake of argument.

Not if the latter phrase refers to the prophecy. There is no move to Zebulun and Naphtali in the Isaianic prophecy. The move itself fulfills nothing in the prophecy, no matter where Nazara is.

Not as such. The prophecy is given so as to explain the significance of Capernaum being by the sea (way of the sea in the prophecy), within the bounds of Zebulun and Naphtali (land of Z and land of N in the prophecy), and the site of the dominical ministry (the great light of the prophecy).

(This is the interesting thing about the prophecy as interpreted by Matthew. In my view, Nazara equals Nazareth, which fulfills only one of the items on this list; Nazareth is not by the sea and it is not the base of the ministry. Basing himself in Capernaum fulfills all three items. Yet you seem to want to read something more into the move from Nazara to Capernaum.)

There is no arrival, as such, of the light in the prophecy. At least it is not expressed. It merely says that the people in that region saw a great light, and that the light dawned. If you are trying to equate the dawning of sunlight with the actual, literal move from Nazara to Capernaum in the Matthean mind, I can do little more than to express my disagreement.

I am finding myself a little short of time in these responses. Sorry. I really do think the salient points are on the table for the interested reader.

Ben.

the_cave

spin, do you make anything of the fact that both 2:23 and 4:13 use the phrase elqwn katwkhsen eis?

the_cave

I can't help but add this--

I'm still undecided about the meaning of Mt 4:13, but there might be a problem with claiming it is a typically Hebrew/Semitic parallelism. Matthew infamously misunderstands Zechariah 9:9 in Matthew 21:5, where he reads a parallelism to mean that the king will come riding on both an ass and a colt. So it seems unlikely that Matthew would be sophisticated enough to compose his own Greek using a similar parallelism.

The fact that 4:12 and 4:13 are separate verses gives me even more reason to doubt.

spin

What event exactly in 4:13 fulfills the prophecy? I get the funny idea you have by the following:
You seem to totally miss the fact that it is Zebulun and Naphtali in the prophecy which is on the road to the sea and which is Galilee of the gentiles. It is Galilee which is departed to in 4:12.

I see no justification for this conjecture.

4:12 talks of Jesus departing to Galilee. 4:13 tells of Jesus moving from Nazara to Capernaum by the sea in Zebulun and Naphtali. 4:16 talks of the light that comes to Galilee/Z&N. The only way you can get out of the conclusion that 4:13 deals with the same event alluded to by both 4:12 and 4:15-16 is to avoid the relationship it has with the others and have a gap theory subtext. Jesus went to Nazara and some time later moved to Capernaum.

There was a time when the light was not. There came a time when it was. This is strictly attached to Jesus' move to Capernaum via 4:14.


spin

spin

It relates one move to the other.

(Matthew is not a person it is a text. This is why I refer to the Matthean writer. There was more than one writer of that text.)

The writer has specifically included the destination in 4:13, "by-the-sea in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali", which is derived from the prophecy to attach 4:13 to 4:12's Galilee. He's using these linguistic connections consciously so that his readers could see the relationship between the move and the prophecy.

This last observation doesn't seem salient, given that the notion of verses was added long after the time of writing.


spin

Ben C Smith

There is no single event that fulfills the prophecy. I listed three separate events or circumstances that fulfill the prophecy:

1. Being in Z and N, or Galilee.
2. Being by the sea.
3. Starting the ministry (AKA shining a light).

On my reading (not yours), the withdrawal in verse 12 gets Jesus into Galilee, but the Isaianic prophecy is nowhere near being fulfilled yet (no sea, no light yet). (It is understood that he went to Nazara when he went to Galilee, because that was his point of origin according to Matthew 2.23; he is going back to Galilee. The kai is then taken in the usual way as marking the next step.) The moving to Capernaum in verse 13 gets Jesus by the sea, but still remaining in Z and N. The start of the ministry in verse 17 shines the light.

This is very simple. Z and N can be completely coterminous with Galilee, and Nazara can lie completely within either Z or N, completely within Galilee, and the passage still makes sense as it stands. The move away from Nazara may be, on its own in this passage, a move from some other area into Galilee (Z and N), or it may be a move to where Jesus can fulfill the entire prophecy (in Matthean terms).

Ben.

the_cave

How? They are unrelated--one is Joseph's move to Nazara. The other is Jesus' move to Capernaum! Two unrelated events. But they would be related...if they had the same author. Why would two different authors use the same phrase? Is this just coincidence?

I agree, but there was one writer responsible for the bulk of canonical Matthew, and we might as well call him "Matthew". Before and after there were other authors, of course.

Yes, but there is nothing here showing that "Having left Nazara" is just a parallel to "He withdrew to Galilee". Greeks still wrote in complete sentences. Maybe Mt 4:12-13 is a complete sentence, but maybe not.

Let me put it this way: your analysis shows that (the original author of) Matthew didn't identify Nazara with Nazareth. I'm not sure it can do more, but why does it need to? We've learned something.

We are still left with 2:23, however, and I still wonder: where do you think Nazara made its first appearance in Matthew, before 2:23 was written? Because 4:13 refers to it as though the reader knows about it already.

Again, the Greeks still wrote in complete sentences. It's possible that 4:12 and 4:13 are the same sentence. Are you making this claim? Otherwise, you know, maybe so, maybe not.

And, if I may try to explain Ben's argument a little better, he is saying that even after the move to Capernaum, the prophecy still was not fulfilled. It would become fulfilled once Jesus began his ministry--i.e. he moved to Capernaum, setting the stage for fulfillment of the prophecy. Hence the move to Capernaum itself is not the fulfillment of the prophecy.

I have to admit I can't decide who's reading is better here; spin's or Ben's.

spin

It is Zebulun and Naphtali which is by the sea and which is Galilee. See the Isaian prophecy.

You are still maintaining the weird concentration of thn paraQalassian (which itself describes Z&N in the prophecy) and purposefully ignoring the ev zaboulwn kai nefQalaim which qualifies Capernaum and not Nazara.

To get to your position there is too much that you have to smooth over. There is no playing fast and loose with the text in the analysis I'm providing. I've now even given you a parallel example in Mt 17:2 of the writer using an epexegetical kai in the same context of explaining the source material.

I agree that the fulfillment of the Isaian prophecy is not finished with the move into Galilee, but that move is part of its fulfillment, and the writer makes sure the reader knows how the prophecy is hooked into the text: the move, already mentioned in 4:12, into Zebulun and Naphtali (so that the people in darkness there can see the light). Your "I'll take this bit but not that bit" approach shouldn't convince you that it deals with the text.


spin