dizzy

It disappoints me in part because of the statistics provided by DBT, which suggest that Acts is being treated by translators as a special case.


You yourself posted some time ago saying that "classically" this is the case. The impression I have formed is that this behaviour of akouw is only definitely true of classical Greek, and that it is inconsistently applied in Koine. I dislike the idea that the writer of Acts would have placed so much burden on a fading grammatical distinction.

But as you might gather, my command of Greek is rudimentary. If you feel very strongly that I'm off my rocker, I'll defer to that.


My issue is not with what the grammar was trying to convey. The distinction itself is fairly clear to me. But the reason for making the distinction in the first place, based on what I could decipher from the arguments, seemed circular.

It's in the public domain. I'm almost sure I got it from this page. It should be on archive.org as well.

DCHindley

According to A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Wm Arndt & Wilbur Gingrich, 1957):

Acts 9:7 is associated with AKOUW (hear), definition 1 (literally of sense perception), b (with object), γ - gamma (followed by a thing as object in genitive case): hear something. Act 9:7 (on the experience of Paul and his companions cf. Maximum Tyrius - 2nd century - 9,7 d-f: some see a divine figure, others see nothing but hear a voice, still others see and hear). But cf. Rob. 506 for the view that the difference in cases between 9:7 & 9:22 is important.

Acts 22:9 is associated with AKOUW (hear), definition 1 (literally of sense perception), b (with object), α - alpha (followed by a thing as object in accusative case): the message being heard. Often the object [is not included in the sentence and] is to be supplied by context

Those two passages go like this:

Acts 9:3b ... exaiphnês (suddenly) te (and) auton (him) periêstrapsen (flashing-around) phôs (light) ek (out-of) tou (the) ouranou(heaven) ... 4 kai (and) pesôn (having fallen) epi (upon) tên (the) gên (earth/ground) êkousen (he-heard) phônên (sound/voice) legousan (saying) autô (to him) ... 7 hoi (the) de (but) andres (men) hoi (the-ones) sunodeuontes (journying-with) autô (him) heistêkeisan (had-stood) eneoi (speechless), akouontes* (hearing) men (on-the-one-hand) tês (the - in genitive case) phônês (sound/voice - in genitive case) mêdena (no-one) de (on-the-other-hand) theôrountes (seeing)

*akouontes, verb participle present active nominative masculine plural

Here, in the author's narrative, the verb AKOUW is in the form of a participle, but takes nouns as objects in the genitive case. All we can ascertain is that the men around Paul heard the same sound as Paul, and that Paul took it as a voice speaking to him. However, we cannot determine from these sentences whether the men heard just a sound or also thought they heard a voice.

Acts 22:9b Now those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me.

Acts 22:9b ... hoi (the-ones) de (but) sun (together-with) emoi (me) ontes (being) to (the) men (on-the-one-hand) phôs (light) etheasanto (they viewed) tên (the = in the accusative case) de (on-the-other-hand) phônên (sound/voice = in the accusative case) ouk (not) êkousan* (they-heard) tou (the-one) lalountos (speaking) moi (to me).

*êkousan, verb indicative aorist active 3rd person plural

Here Paul is represented in direct speech, and the verb AKOUW (as êkousan) takes the noun FWNH (as tên phônên) as the object of the sentence, and this noun is in the accusative case. So here, Paul is made to explain that all of them saw a light and heard a sound (the word is in the singular, meaning either one voice or sound), but that while Paul thought the sound was a voice speaking to him, the others did not hear it that way.

I could not see any "numbers" in they post you referred to to back up the idea that interpreting this second passage in this way is some sort of special pleading. Robertson is right that in classical literature a form of AKOUW that "takes" an object in the accusative the object of the sentence understands what is being spoken. Koine is a somewhat simplified form of classical Greek (no dual form, some verbal forms are not used, etc), but it is always dependent upon classical Greek.

This is not really a good example of making an interpretation fit. I'd look at the Granville Sharp rule.

DCH

mountainman

I regard evidence as more worthy than argument and capable of speaking for itself without argument. For example the hypothesis that there was an "Historical Jesus" is an hypothesis in ancient history supported by centuries of argument from traditional authority first publicised widely only in the fourth century codices of the Roman Emperor Constantine. As far as I can see, the hypothetical historical jesus has alot of arguments from authority running very fast before it but it has no evidence at all to support these arguments.

Toto

On Koine Greek: Archaic Greek in a Modern World While most of the people working on Koine Greek seem to be Christians, they are not all the same sect of Christians, and do not necessarily have the same interests. And Koine Greek is similar enough to ancient Greek and modern Greek to provide some check on accuracy. So I don't think that things are as bleak as you make out in the OP.

dizzy

Thanks so much for all the detail, David. For the time being I'll have to adjourn this discussion. It has reached the point of being slightly over my head.

I reserve the right to bump this thread a year from now, okay Toto?

Cheers for this.

Toto

OK by me.

Doug Shaver

Well, that would explain a thing or two.

dizzy

When my parents were still together, my dad used to lose all the arguments. One day he said, "I don't lose because I'm wrong. I lose because you're better with words than I am."

Somehow relevant.