Why is ἐλέγετε imperfect in Luke 17:6?

Question

Hi Dennis,

I’m wondering why ἐλέγετε is imperfect here? Is Imperfect + av a formula?

Luke 17:6 (NA27 with Mounce-Koivisto Morphology)

εἶπεν δὲ ὁ κύριος· εἰ ἔχετε πίστιν ὡς κόκκον σινάπεως, ἐλέγετε ἂν τῇ συκαμίνῳ [ταύτῃ]· ἐκριζώθητι καὶ φυτεύθητι ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ· καὶ ὑπήκουσεν ἂν ὑμῖν.

Response

You spotted an unusual tense pair in a contrary to fact construction. Good spotting. It might be a unique construction in the GNT (I don’t find any others in the 1/3 of the Greek New Testament (GNT) I have coded).

ἂν as a contrary to fact particle in the main clause always goes with past tense.

Normally the conditional and main verb are both past indicative tenses (If you had had, then you would have had). However, the conditional here in this instance is an unusual present (If you have, although the story makes it plain that they don’t have faith. So it is actually contrary to fact). So with this unusual present contrary to fact conditional, I don’t think the speaker had any choice to put the main clause in imperfect, the closest past tense to present. It is probably very good Greek and belies the popular notion that the GNT is rough.

Romans 3:30 Change of Prepositions

QUESTION

Is the change from ἐκ to διὰ theologically significant or just stylistic? I’m assuming the latter

Romans 3:30

εἴπερ εἷς ὁ θεὸς ὃς δικαιώσει περιτομὴν ἐκ πίστεως καὶ ἀκροβυστίαν διὰ τῆς πίστεως.

Response

Agreed. Parallel. However, another way to look at it is with this variation Paul gets to assert both causalities both ways, that God makes the uncircumcised righteous through their faithfulness and declares them righteous because of their faith and the same for the circumcision.

"Troubled" in Greek John 12:27

QUestion

In John 12:27, "troubled" is tetaraktai in Greek. I'm trying to figure out the beginning te- in the Greek word. Can you help me?

Response

John 12:27

Νῦν ἡ ψυχή μου τετάρακται, καὶ τί εἴπω; πάτερ, σῶσόν με ἐκ τῆς ὥρας ταύτης; ἀλλὰ διὰ τοῦτο ἦλθον εἰς τὴν ὥραν ταύτην.

Normally when you see the epsilon reduplication (like τετ or βεβ), the first guess is perfect. The Greek New Testament (GNT) has hundreds of these; so it is a good pattern to learn. This is confirmed by the third person perfect passive ending ται. Τετάρακται is perfect (5th principal part) from ταρἀσσω to disturb, meaning it has been disturbed, where the double σσ in the first principal part represents a guttural root like χ. (The noun is τάραχος)..

Why does it mean “is troubled” as though it were present ταράσσεται? Perfect refers to an event (a disturbance) that first occurred in the past but whose effect continues in the present; so although it refers to something started in the past, its main time is present. So translators often simplify it that way. Τετάρακται is more precise than ταράσσεται because it communicates to the GNT reader that the trouble has been going on for some time. Exact details like that are hard to capture in translation.

Resources for Pronunciation of Koine Greek

Question

Where can I find resources for Modern Greek pronunciation of Koine Greek?

Response

Stephen Pribble has put together a helpful resource at:

https://all-of-grace.org/pub/pribble/moderngreek/index.html

For the same audio on YouTube with scrolling text, see the link below. Choose a book, listen and follow onscreen. It’s highly recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk3PwQOcbBq2U2r7xsulg8e2Lvs0_QFU5

Use of μή in Acts 7:42

Question

Encountered this morning in today’s reading, Acts 7:42:

μὴ σφάγια καὶ θυσίας προσηνέγκατέ μοι

ἔτη τεσσεράκοντα ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, οἶκος Ἰσραήλ;

(citing Amos 5:25)

Μή does not seem to negate προσηνέγκατε, which is indicative. What is its function here?

Response

The negative mood rule that you know about the indicative applies to a little less than 90% of negatives but there are many exceptions. The Interrogative negative expecting a negative response is one of those exceptions. You see the initial position of the negative and the separation from the verb.

Koine Greek Questions as Independent Clauses

Question

Hi Dennis,

Is a question ever an independent clause in Koine Greek?

Response

Clauses are headed by finite verbs. Relative clauses and clauses with subordinators like ὁτι are not usually interrogative. Interrogative clauses have a question mark (:) at the end and may be dependent or independent. They often start with interrogative words such as “why” or “where.” There are also interrogative relative clauses such as “he asked what he could do”, but these are dependent and lack the question mark. About 6% of GNT main clauses are interrogative. About a third of those are dependent clauses governed by a discourse control verb in the independent clause, and about two thirds are independent.

All of the independent interrogative clauses are in letters (epistles) or in extended discourse that have a discourse control word (usually a verb) in a previous independent clause. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5:13, Jesus says

“If the salt loses its flavor, with what will it be salted?”

The discourse control verb is λέγων back in Matthew 5:2. In addition to interrogative clauses, elliptical interrogative fragments occur, and these are usually independent. For example in Matthew 11:7, Jesus asks

“What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?"

What is the antecedent for τούτου in Genesis 2:24 LXX (Septuagint)?

QUESTION

Genesis 2:24

" 24 ἕνεκεν τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν."

τούτου Is neuter here, apparently, but what is it referring to? Is it part of an idiom “therefore” ἕνεκεν τούτου and so an antecedent isn’t needed? Bone is neuter in verse 23, but that doesn’t seem sufficient to the meaning.

RESPONSE

As you know, all pronouns and verbs (and a few other kinds of words) in Greek have antecedents. The antecedent of τούτου is the previous sentence, as is common in the Greek New Testament (GNT). Probably you didn’t think of a whole sentence, or discourse even, as a candidate, but the Greek speakers certainly did.

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?