Freethought & Rationalism Archive

JoeWallack · 11-20-2010, 11:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Streeter formed the argument in this way (op. cit., p. 29):

...

Styler provides a single example (op. cit., p. 69): Mk. 10:20 has efulaxamhn, which is gramatically incorrect. Mt. 19:20 reads the correct form, efulaxa.

Better read at the link - the symbol font does not copy.

JW:
Thank god someone provided a specific example. I was going to posture that if no one had a specific claim of ungrammatical use by "Mark" than Stephen Colbert and Glen Beck would agree that "Mark" is grammatical. On to the offending verse:

http://biblos.com/mark/10-20.htm

Quote:

Mark 10:20 Greek Study Bible (Apostolic / Interlinear)

ὁ δὲ ἔφη αὐτῷ· διδάσκαλε, ταῦτα πάντα ἐφυλαξάμην ἐκ νεότητος μου.

KJV with Strong's

And he answered and said unto him Master all these have I observed from my youth

Greek	Transliteration	Strong's	Morphology	English
ὁ	o	3588	T-NSM
δὲ	de	1161	CONJ	And
ἔφη	ephē	5346	V-IAI-3S	said
αὐτῷ	autō	846	P-DSM	to him
διδάσκαλε	didaskale	1320	N-VSM	teacher
ταῦτα	tauta	5023	D-APN	these
πάντα	panta	3956	A-APN	all
ἐφυλαξάμην	ephulaxamēn	5442	V-AMI-1S	I kept
ἐκ	ek	1537	PREP	from
νεότητος	neotētos	3503	N-GSF	youth
μου	mou	3450	P-1GS	of me

Verses:

http://biblos.com/matthew/19-20.htm

Greek	Transliteration	Strong's	Morphology	English
λέγει	legei	3004	V-PAI-3S	said
αὐτῷ	autō	846	P-DSM	to him
ὁ	o	3588	T-NSM
νεανίσκος	neaniskos	3495	N-NSM	young man
ταῦτα	tauta	3956	D-APN	all
πάντα	panta	5023	A-APN	things
[B]ἐφύλαξα	ephulaxa	5442	V-AAI-1S	I have kept
τί	ti	5101	I-ASN	what
ἔτι	eti	2089	ADV	still
ὑστερῶ	usterō	5302	V-PAI-1S-C	do i lack

The main difference is that for the offending verb "Mark" uses the Middle Voice while "Matthew" uses the Active Voice. France in NIGTC says it could be proper grammar meaning "I have kept myself from" and cites Gundry (yikes). Some of the translations move in this direction but I don't see how this is even a possible translation and I have to consider that France is overly sympathetic to avoidance of claimed errors. The active voice gives a straight forward meaning to the verb (kept). The middle voice puts the emphasis on the subject (the rich man). I don't see how that works here.

Toto, is Gibson still in that God awful play? It probably opened and closed on the same night. I'll ask Dr. Carrier about this.

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

JoeWallack · 11-24-2010, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWallack

http://biblos.com/mark/10-20.htm

Greek	Transliteration	Strong's	Morphology	English
ὁ	o	3588	T-NSM
δὲ	de	1161	CONJ	And
ἔφη	ephē	5346	V-IAI-3S	said
αὐτῷ	autō	846	P-DSM	to him
διδάσκαλε	didaskale	1320	N-VSM	teacher
ταῦτα	tauta	5023	D-APN	these
πάντα	panta	3956	A-APN	all
ἐφυλαξάμην	ephulaxamēn	5442	V-AMI-1S	I kept
ἐκ	ek	1537	PREP	from
νεότητος	neotētos	3503	N-GSF	youth
μου	mou	3450	P-1GS	of me

Verses:

http://biblos.com/matthew/19-20.htm

Greek	Transliteration	Strong's	Morphology	English
λέγει	legei	3004	V-PAI-3S	said
αὐτῷ	autō	846	P-DSM	to him
ὁ	o	3588	T-NSM
νεανίσκος	neaniskos	3495	N-NSM	young man
ταῦτα	tauta	3956	D-APN	all
πάντα	panta	5023	A-APN	things
[B]ἐφύλαξα	ephulaxa	5442	V-AAI-1S	I have kept
τί	ti	5101	I-ASN	what
ἔτι	eti	2089	ADV	still
ὑστερῶ	usterō	5302	V-PAI-1S-C	do i lack

The main difference is that for the offending verb "Mark" uses the Middle Voice while "Matthew" uses the Active Voice. France in NIGTC says it could be proper grammar meaning "I have kept myself from" and cites Gundry (yikes). Some of the translations move in this direction but I don't see how this is even a possible translation and I have to consider that France is overly sympathetic to avoidance of claimed errors. The active voice gives a straight forward meaning to the verb (kept). The middle voice puts the emphasis on the subject (the rich man).

JW:
Here is Dr. Carrier's response regarding whether the offending verse is grammatical:

Quote:

First, Koine Greek often deviated from "formal" grammar the same way
all colloquial dialects do (even today), so one must account for what
was actually common practice within that dialect at that time and
place. This case does not deviate, however (see below). But this is a
rule to keep in mind generally.

Second, has anyone in this discussion checked any scholarly
commentaries on Mark for this passage? The issue could already have
been analyzed and discussed.

Third, many mss. of Mt. 19:20 have the identical verb form as Mk.
10:20 (plus the "from my youth"). The consensus is that in these mss.
Mt. was corrected to conform to Mk. No one would do that if the
Markan form were ungrammatical (as then the corrections would go the
other way, yet there are no variants for Mk. 10:20--it was never
corrected in any way). One rule to live by: ancient Greeks know their
language better than you do.

Fourth, middle voice is acceptable grammar for a transitive use of
phylasso in every dialect I know (and is attested as such,
extensively, in Liddell & Scott)--particularly with a self-
referential clause ("from MY youth," hence what is being said is "I
guarded these things for myself [or in myself, etc., these being the
connotations of a middle voice] from my youth on"). Thus Matthew's
changing the verb to active would make more sense if he had already
decided for some reason to cut "from my youth" thus weakening the
self-referential nature of the remark and thus negating the relevance
of the middle voice (thus the two changes go together, implying he is
not correcting grammar but either just shortening the remark or
changing some subtlety of its meaning; or, like you hypothesize, it
was just a difference of literary style, Mt. being more accustomed to
active uses of phylasso, but IMO Mt. so slavishly copies Mk. most of
the time and a middle transitive use of phylasso is so widely
attested as ordinary, that odds are Mt. would not have changed this
passage unless he had a specific reason to, in which event I would
suspect either of two hypotheses as the more probable: Matthew
intends a slightly different meaning than Mark and had a good reason
to change that meaning by changing the sentence (whether we can now
suss what it was or not) or Mark originally had what Matthew has (and
thus Matthew *did* slavishly copy Mark) but later (i.e. post-Matthew)
redactors of Mark thought the sentence was too unclear and thus added
the "from my youth" and hence changed the verb to middle voice to
fit, and by chance none of the original Markan texts used by Matthew
survived, which is not that improbable, considering how neglected
Mark was as a Gospel for several centuries, increasing the
probability that redacted (i.e. in the case of this sentence
"expanded") texts would outlive earlier ones).

Richard C. Carrier, Ph.D.
http://www.richardcarrier.info

Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

JoeWallack · 11-25-2010, 10:09 AM

JW:
The offending verse:

http://biblos.com/mark/10-20.htm

Greek	Transliteration	Strong's	Morphology	English
ὁ	o	3588	T-NSM
δὲ	de	1161	CONJ	And
ἔφη	ephē	5346	V-IAI-3S	said
αὐτῷ	autō	846	P-DSM	to him
διδάσκαλε	didaskale	1320	N-VSM	teacher
ταῦτα	tauta	5023	D-APN	these
πάντα	panta	3956	A-APN	all
ἐφυλαξάμην	ephulaxamēn	5442	V-AMI-1S	I kept
ἐκ	ek	1537	PREP	from
νεότητος	neotētos	3503	N-GSF	youth
μου	mou	3450	P-1GS	of me

JW:
Regarding 10:20 here is Dr. Carrier's defense of it as grammatical:

1)

Quote:

many mss. of Mt. 19:20 have the identical verb form as Mk.
10:20 (plus the "from my youth"). The consensus is that in these mss.
Mt. was corrected to conform to Mk. No one would do that if the
Markan form were ungrammatical (as then the corrections would go the
other way,

http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/TCG/TC-Matthew.pdf

Quote:

TVU 217

NA27 Matthew 19:20 le,gei auvtw/| o` neani,skoj\pa,nta tau/ta evfu,laxa\ ti, e;ti u`sterw/È

BYZ Matthew 19:20 le,gei auvtw/| o` neani,skoj\pa,nta tau/ta evfulaxa,mhn evk neo,thto,j mou\ ti, e;ti u`sterw/È

...

Parallels:

NA27 Mark 10:20 o` de. e;fh auvtw/|\ dida,skale(tau/ta pa,nta evfulaxa,mhn evk neo,thto,j mouÅ

...

Clearly a harmonization to Mk or Lk. No reason for an omission.

The Greek fonts do not come through but you can see that the Byzantine text of "Matthew" 19:20 agrees exactly with the offending word and phrase. Pretty good evidence that the offending verse was not considered ungrammatical.

2)

Quote:

there are no variants for Mk. 10:20--it was never
corrected in any way). One rule to live by: ancient Greeks know their
language better than you do.

3)

Quote:

middle voice is acceptable grammar for a transitive use of
phylasso in every dialect I know (and is attested as such,
extensively, in Liddell & Scott)

The specific construct is well attested.

4)

Quote:

--particularly with a self-
referential clause ("from MY youth," hence what is being said is "I
guarded these things for myself [or in myself, etc., these being the
connotations of a middle voice] from my youth on").

The middle voice places the emphasis on the subject (the man). This fits the context that the man is boasting that he has kept the Law in contrast to those who have not. This would be the English equivalent of the "I" in italics, "I", to emphasize himself, complimented by the referred to time period ("my youth").

Okay, no grammatical error here. Next?

Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

JoeWallack · 02-29-2012, 09:23 AM

JW:

Sho far, no one has presented anything in "Mark" that is ungrammatical. And in fact Marky Mark just received a grammy. The question in this post is, is the ending of "Mark" ungrammtical?

Mark 16:8

Strong's	Transliteration	Greek	English	Morphology
2532 [e]	kai	καὶ	And	Conj
1831 [e]	exelthousai	ἐξελθοῦσαι	having gone out,	V-APA-NFP
5343 [e]	ephygon	ἔφυγον	they fled	V-AIA-3P
575 [e]	apo	ἀπὸ	from	Prep
3588 [e]	tou	τοῦ	the	Art-GNS
3419 [e]	mnēmeiou	μνημείου	tomb.	N-GNS
2192 [e]	eichen	εἶχεν	possessed	V-IIA-3S
1063 [e]	gar	γὰρ	indeed	Conj
846 [e]	autas	αὐτὰς	them	PPro-AF3P
5156 [e]	tromos	τρόμος	trembling	N-NMS
2532 [e]	kai	καὶ	and	Conj
1611 [e]	ekstasis	ἔκστασις	amazement,	N-NFS
2532 [e]	kai	καὶ	and	Conj
3762 [e]	oudeni	οὐδενὶ	to none	Adj-DMS
3762 [e]	ouden	οὐδὲν	nothing	Adj-ANS
3004 [e]	eipan	εἶπαν	they spoke;	V-AIA-3P
5399 [e]	ephobounto	ἐφοβοῦντο	they were afraid	V-IIM/P-3P
1063 [e]	gar	γάρ	indeed.	Conj

JW:
Regarding the ending word:

gar γάρ indeed. Conj

note that the offending word is normally a conjunction and most translations translate as such:

"they said nothing to any one; for they were afraid. (ASV)"

By English standards the author has left his conJunktion hanging out. It follows the cause part of the sentence, "they were afraid", where normally it would be in between the effect, "spoke nothing to no one", (kind of surprised Apologists don't take the double negative as indicating they did speak:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc6Dx...608FCFD6AEE4B0 )

and the cause, "they were afraid". This order also seems to be strange/bizarre/macabre for Greek as famously noted.

As always, where the hell is Jeffrey Gibson when you actually need him? In lieu of his absence, all we can do is check with the Authority/Ancient usage to help decide if the placement of the conjunction at the end of the sentence is ungrammatical. I have to confess already that if "Mark's" only ungrammatical grammar is at the extreme end of his Gospel and involves reversed expectation of word presentation in a narrative with a primary theme of reversed expectation, I would be inclined to find that reMarkable and inventory it as Style.

Looking first at R.T. France in NIGTC, he does not find the ending ungrammatical. He notes parallels for the conjunction at the end of the narrative statement in the Greek of Genesis 18:15 and 45:3. 45:3 is especially interesting here:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Genesis_45

Quote:

45:1 Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood before him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren.

45:2 And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians heard, and the house of Pharaoh heard.

45:3 And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence.

The theme fits to a stauros. Joseph's "brethren" could not respond to him because they were afraid (they thought he was dead). Another reMarkable parallel. To expand than my model for "Mark's" models of Jesus:

Teaching Ministry = Moses

Healing Ministry = Elijah

Passion Ministry = David

Resurrection Ministry = Joseph

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.