Freethought & Rationalism Archive

andrewcriddle · 09-06-2009, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

Quote:

I think that the issue is how TOLMHQENTA relates to the rest of the clause. Does it mean "They relate that the audacious [criminal] death of the Saviour ..." or "They audaciously [blasphemously] relate that the death of the Saviour ..."

Unfortunately, my originally just barely adequate abilities in Greek have been ravished by 35 years of neglect, and I have to admit that the Greek constructions of Eusebius (and Josephus as well) are far more complex and harder to interpret than the relatively simple NT Greek is.

Without recourse to a morphologically tagged Greek text of Eusebius' CH (HE, if you prefer), much less his other works, I have tried to lay out the Greek text and figure out what it means. I use BibleWorks (for Greek words that may have cognate forms in the NT or LXX), plus Kalos and visits to Perseus (not the same since they had their sever crash a few years ago and discovered they had not backed up any modifications to their search tools for a good while), and of course I do have several lexicons - classical (L&S short) and NT (BAG, yes, out of date).

I know that TOLMHQENTA is a participle of the verb TOLMAW (to dare, risk), either an accusative masculine singular aorist passive voice, OR an nominative/vocative/accusative neuter plural aorist passive voice. The kind of action indicated is punctiliar (happened on one or more specific points in the past), with a time action that is antecedent (precedes) to that of the main verb. It does not have an article associated with it (no "the") indicating a temporal translation, something like "having been dared, when he was dared, after he was dared, after he has been dared, after he has been dared."

So the trick is matching this participle to its related verb. You think it has to do with the suffering of the Savior, or what they relate, but I am not sure what verb this is based on. I'm having trouble parsing DIADEDWKOTWN (some weird active perfect or pluperfect form of DIADIDWMI, distribute, give?), is this what might be referred to?

Surely Rabbi, thou knowest.

DCH

Hi Dave

I'm afraid this is around the limit of my Greek but I'll try and make a few points.

a/ I think TOLMHQENTA here has to be 'dare' in a bad sense (that's why I used audacious/audaciously).
b/ PAQOS clearly means suffering/death.
c/ PERIEXEI refers, in this context, to containing a statement within a text, translated as "they [the Acts] relate that" rather than more literally "they [the Acts] contain the statement that".

The issue IIUC and IMHO is whether the bad daring which TOLMHQENTA refers to is the suffering/death of Jesus or the statement about the same contained in the Acts. IE is TOLMHQENTA linked to PAQOS or to PERIEXEI.

Kirsopp Lake seems to have linked TOLMHQENTA to PAQOS while Philip Schaff apparently linked TOLMHQENTA to PERIEXEI.

As I said, this is around the limit of my Greek and should be treated with caution.

Andrew Criddle

DCHindley · 09-06-2009, 10:53 AM

Hey Andrew,

But the "daring" is passive, as if the subject had been dared to produce the Acts.

Now I understand that Justin Martyr references a document called the Acts of Pilate in a letter addressed to the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius in AD 150:

And the expression "They pierced my hands and feet," was used in reference to the nails of the cross which were fixed in His hands and feet. And after He was crucified, they cast lots upon His vesture, and they that crucified Him parted it among them. And that these things did happen, you can ascertain from the ‘Acts of Pontius Pilate’ (First Apology 35:7-9, translation from Rev. Alexander Roberts D.D. and James Donaldson LL.D editors, The Anti Nicene Fathers, Vol 1, WM B. Eerdman Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, p. 174-75).

and

And that He did those things (e.g., healing of the blind and the lepers and raising people from the dead), you can learn from the ‘Acts of Pilate’ (First Apology 48:3, Ibid. p. 179).

Citation stolen from here.

Tertullian, who I mentioned earlier, thought a record of Jesus' birth still existed, which is a different thing altogether, and I should have said Justin made the challenge to check the archives for the Acta of Pilate.

DCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

Unfortunately, my originally just barely adequate abilities in Greek have been ravished by 35 years of neglect, and I have to admit that the Greek constructions of Eusebius (and Josephus as well) are far more complex and harder to interpret than the relatively simple NT Greek is.

Without recourse to a morphologically tagged Greek text of Eusebius' CH (HE, if you prefer), much less his other works, I have tried to lay out the Greek text and figure out what it means. I use BibleWorks (for Greek words that may have cognate forms in the NT or LXX), plus Kalos and visits to Perseus (not the same since they had their sever crash a few years ago and discovered they had not backed up any modifications to their search tools for a good while), and of course I do have several lexicons - classical (L&S short) and NT (BAG, yes, out of date).

I know that TOLMHQENTA is a participle of the verb TOLMAW (to dare, risk), either an accusative masculine singular aorist passive voice, OR an nominative/vocative/accusative neuter plural aorist passive voice. The kind of action indicated is punctiliar (happened on one or more specific points in the past), with a time action that is antecedent (precedes) to that of the main verb. It does not have an article associated with it (no "the") indicating a temporal translation, something like "having been dared, when he was dared, after he was dared, after he has been dared, after he has been dared."

So the trick is matching this participle to its related verb. You think it has to do with the suffering of the Savior, or what they relate, but I am not sure what verb this is based on. I'm having trouble parsing DIADEDWKOTWN (some weird active perfect or pluperfect form of DIADIDWMI, distribute, give?), is this what might be referred to?

Surely Rabbi, thou knowest.

DCH

Hi Dave

I'm afraid this is around the limit of my Greek but I'll try and make a few points.

a/ I think TOLMHQENTA here has to be 'dare' in a bad sense (that's why I used audacious/audaciously).
b/ PAQOS clearly means suffering/death.
c/ PERIEXEI refers, in this context, to containing a statement within a text, translated as "they [the Acts] relate that" rather than more literally "they [the Acts] contain the statement that".

The issue IIUC and IMHO is whether the bad daring which TOLMHQENTA refers to is the suffering/death of Jesus or the statement about the same contained in the Acts. IE is TOLMHQENTA linked to PAQOS or to PERIEXEI.

Kirsopp Lake seems to have linked TOLMHQENTA to PAQOS while Philip Schaff apparently linked TOLMHQENTA to PERIEXEI.

As I said, this is around the limit of my Greek and should be treated with caution.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle · 09-06-2009, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

Hey Andrew,

But the "daring" is passive, as if the subject had been dared to produce the Acts.

The passive IIUC refers either to the suffering dared (bad sense) to have been inflicted (Kirsopp Lake); or to the statement dared (bad sense) to have been related (Philip Schaff).

Andrew Criddle

the_cave · 09-06-2009, 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

I think that Eusebius is working on the basis that (according to the Gospels )John died before Jesus. He has forgotten that Josephus' account of John is back story and comes after the TF in book XVIII.

Just to be clear, if the error is attributable to Eusebius, what exactly does he say about the TF in relation to the account of John? Or what exactly is being mistranslated--is it dielthon?

andrewcriddle · 09-07-2009, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_cave

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

I think that Eusebius is working on the basis that (according to the Gospels )John died before Jesus. He has forgotten that Josephus' account of John is back story and comes after the TF in book XVIII.

Just to be clear, if the error is attributable to Eusebius, what exactly does he say about the TF in relation to the account of John? Or what exactly is being mistranslated--is it dielthon?

As already admitted I find Eusebius' Greek difficult.

However dielthon is an aorist participle of DIERXOMAI and means something like having narrated (completed past act); the other verb memnetai is a perfect of MIMNHSKW, with IIUC present meaning, and means something like he makes mention of.

A literal translation (again IIUC) would be having narrated these things about John he makes mention of our Saviour in the following way in the same historical work. This seems to imply that the account of Jesus comes later in the text than the account of John but doesn't explicitly say so.

Andrew Criddle

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