Jude 1:11 Translation

QUESTION

I’m having trouble with this verse, Jude 1:11, specifically with the dative τῇ πλάνῃ and the genitive τοῦ μισθοῦ. I would have translated it “The wages of Baalam” but the NASB somehow puts the dative with Baalam for “the error of Baalam”.

Jude 1:11 (NA27 with Mounce-Koivisto Morphology)

" 11 οὐαὶ αὐτοῖς, ὅτι τῇ ὁδῷ τοῦ Κάϊν ἐπορεύθησαν καὶ τῇ πλάνῃ τοῦ Βαλαὰμ μισθοῦ ἐξεχύθησαν καὶ τῇ ἀντιλογίᾳ τοῦ Κόρε ἀπώλοντο."

(NASB) Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah

RESPONSE

Four genitives to sort out and connect. This is a very structured sentence with three clauses, each starting with an articular dative and its trailing articular genitive, according to the canon of Apollonius. τῇ ὁδῷ τοῦ Κάϊν, καὶ τῇ πλάνῃ τοῦ Βαλαὰμ, καὶ τῇ ἀντιλογίᾳ τοῦ Κόρε. Anarthrous genitives like μισθοῦ do not go with articular heads, ordinarily, and genitives do not have genitives, ordinarily This gives an immediate clue that μισθοῦ is adverbial, not a genitive modifier of a noun.

The extra genitive is the anarthrous genitive μισθοῦ which means for pay. Although adverbial nouns are generally dative (60%), the Greeks knew that the adverbial idiom of price was genitive.

—Dennis Kenaga

μή in Matthew 7:9-10 in the Greek New Testament

QUESTION

What is the meaning of μή in these verses, Matthew 7:9-10? It is here twice used with the indicative in the apodosis clause.

ἢ τίς ἐστιν ἐξ ὑμῶν ἄνθρωπος,

ὃν αἰτήσει ὁ υἱὸς αὐτοῦ ἄρτον,

μὴ λίθον ἐπιδώσει αὐτῷ;

ἢ καὶ ἰχθὺν αἰτήσει,

μὴ ὄφιν ἐπιδώσει αὐτῷ;

Or what man is there among you,

whose son shall ask for bread,

(not) shall give him a stone?

Or also shall ask for a fish,

(not) shall give him a serpent?

Strong notes that in the KJV μἠ is not translated 51x. These are two such instances. It definitely makes sense to leave them untranslated here.

Bauer, Arndt and Gingrich, Greek-English Lexicon (1957, reprint 1975) identifies μἠ as a negative particle and cites this reference as follows:

1. in direct questions (Xenophon Eph. 398, 26 H.; Job 1:9; 8:11) perhaps, usu. left untranslated, but cf. μή τινος ὑστερήσατε; you did not lack anything, did you? Lk 22:35. Cf. Mt 7:9f; 9:15; Mk 2:19; Lk 5:34; 11:11; 17:9; J 3:4; 4:12, 33; 6:67; 7:35, 51f; 21:5 (cf. μήτι); Ac 7:28 (Ex 2:14), 42 (Am 5:25); Ro 3:3, 5 (cf. Job 8:3); 9:14, 20 (Is 29:16); 1 Cor 1:13; 9:8f; 10:22 al. μὴ γάρ J 7:41; 1 Cor 11:22.—In cases like Ro 10:18f; 1 Cor 9:4f μή is an interrog. word and οὐ negatives the verb. The double negative causes one to expect an affirmative answer (Bl-D. §427, 2; cf. Rob. 1173f; Tetrast. Iamb. 17, 2 p. 266 μὴ οὐκ ἔστι χλόη;=‘there is grass, is there not?’).

If μἠ were omitted, would it still be good Greek? How would it affect the translation?

RESPONSE

This is the usual interrogative expecting a negative answer. μὴ is a marker in its clause.

He won’t give his son a stone/snake, will he?

If you make the verse into four main paratactic interrogative clauses, this is clear. However the translators and NU editors have taken them as two main interrogative clauses with elliptical hypotaxis. When the translators do this, the function of μὴ is lost English, and it is confusing for the exegete who is using the English verse as a guide to the Greek, which is more or less the default assumption.

It is good of you to put the verse into the six verbal units. However, the indenting is wrong because what would the grammatical relation of the μὴ clause be to its head? If you indent, you have to be able to identify a head and a grammatical relation. You can see this in your English gloss, which is not a grammatical sentence. The KJV is not a grammatical sentence in modern English either.

NASB is usually the best at being grammatical and attempting to preserve the Greek.

"Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone?

However NASB, like most, has supplied a hypotactic subordinator’ if/when’ that is missing in the paratactic original. So, the translations do not give any help to the original syntax, which is simpler than they think. It would not make sense in Greek if μὴ were omitted. μὴ is not a mysterious optional untranslatable word in Greek as the translations might suggest. That thinking is trying to make the Greek like the English, but our goal in syntax is the other way round. People are not used to translating syntax, but that is our goal.

— Dennis Kenaga

ἐν ᾧ in Mark 2:19 of the Greek New Testament

QUESTION

I noticed this idiom (if it is an idiom) ἐν ᾧ in my reading today in Mark 2:19, which looks to mean ‘during’. I don’t have any particular insight on it but did a search and saw that it occurs 52 times, and I’ve never really noticed it. Can you provide any insights into ἐν ᾧ ?

Mark 2:19 (NA27 with Mounce-Koivisto Morphology)

" 19 καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· μὴ δύνανται οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ νυμφῶνος ἐν ᾧ ὁ νυμφίος μετʼ αὐτῶν ἐστιν νηστεύειν; 1ὅσον χρόνον ἔχουσιν τὸν νυμφίον μετʼ αὐτῶν οὐ δύνανται νηστεύειν."

RESPONSE

The hapax ὡς ἦν is an adverbial subordinator clause. Some translators connect local PP ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ in the default way with adjacent ἦν (option 1), and others connect it in the non default way with distal παραλαμβάνουσιν (option 2) skipping over the adjacent candidate ἦν. The syntax does not give us a decisive clue which is right (although we want to prefer the default adjacent general rule). It has to be decided semantically (playing field for speculators), although it is probably not a theological point.

The option 1 translators tend to imply “since/while” while the option 2 translators tend to put the comma and imply “just as he was without making special preparations” (Leedy takes option 2 and Robertson concurs, but NU lacks the comma, which is noncommittal).

I disagree with the majority that supply “just” or “even” (following the Vulgate supply of ita before ut). The “without preparation" idea of Robertson is very old, implied by Jerome and made explicit by Bengal sine apparatu. I did not see any English or German translations that I liked. My personal opinion is that Mark was not implying option 2 or “since" but was merely being pleonastic or parenthetical in making sure that the readers had the right picture that Jesus was in the ship with them when they took him by ship, but I could be wrong. Of course as usual I am not implying that option 2 is wrong semantically since they did take him in the ship just as he was. I just do not think option 2 identifies the Greek syntax. Option 1 has the right head-dependent connection for the PP but probably not the right syntax for the sentence. (This all will be more immediately apparent when we get the GNT-GC diagrammer launched.)

The bigger question (besides the connection) is what semantic purpose Mark had in inserting the (apparently secondary) subordinator clause. I personally do not see why Mark would want to be telling us that they did not get him a rain coat or tooth brush or something vague like that first before starting out. You get ready to leave by getting your stuff at hand. It is trivial and does not need real estate in the Bible verses.

My Option 3 connects the PP with ἦν like option 1 but uses different syntax and grammatical relations and lacks any semantic implications like ita or just or since:

And they dismissed the crowd and took him along--he was already with them in the ship.

The parenthetic option has the advantage of explicitly avoiding any eisegesis.

I prefer the French translation with the dangling participle, like a parenthetic assertion.

Marc 4:36 French: Louis Segond (1910)

Après avoir renvoyé la foule, ils l'emmenèrent dans la barque où il se trouvait; il y avait aussi d'autres barques avec lui.

Before having sent the crowd back, they brought him in the ship where he was located.

Marc 4:36 French: Martin (1744)

Et laissant les troupes, ils l'emmenèrent [avec eux], lui étant déjà dans la nacelle; et il y avait aussi d'autres petites nacelles avec lui.

And leaving the crowds, they brought him with them--himself already being in the boat.

However, the first one still requires syntactical transposition to make it smooth, but the second one is like an oblique circumstantial participle.

Should we be posting stuff like this in a blog on the site instead of in articles? It has a spontaneous question and answer format but is not a strong demonstration of GC syntax.

—Dennis Kenaga

P.S. The other thing that I did not mention is that ὡς is the most complex/flexible word in the GNT syntactically and is often almost colorless/optional.

ὡς is definitely a subordinator here, but the purpose of the subordinator clause is fuzzy, and a professional editor would probably have wanted to express the idea with more definition and concision.

Πολλῷ πλείους in John 4:41

QUESTION

I have a question concerning the phrase πολλῷ πλείους in John 4:41. Here is the context:

καὶ πολλῷ πλείους ἐπίστευσαν διὰ τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ

Πολλῷ πλείους is generally rendered “many more,” but πολλῷ is dative and πλείους is nominative. What is the idiom here?

RESPONSE

When we encounter unfamiliar (infrequent) constructions and want to classify the syntax and grammatical relations (how it works in Greek), we first classify the morphology of the construction components and then look for precedents to tie the unfamiliar back to the familiar rules.

Πολύς and πλείων are adjectives by class (both with uncommon declensions). We take πολλῷ as modifier of the adjacent πλείους, as all interpretations naturally do. There are two levels of adjectives. Articles and generic pronouns like πόσος are also adjectives in a general sense (by lexical category). When an adjective (usually neuter) modifies a verb, adjective or adverb, it is adverbial. (Note the interplay between invariant lexical class and variable contextual function.)

Normally the declensional adverbial modifier is accusative (e.g., accusative in πολὺ σπουδαιότερον, 2 Cor 8:22). However, some adjectives, including πολύς, are sometimes dative when adverbial (see δημοσίᾳ, Acts 16:37, or ἰδίᾳ in 1 Cor. 12:11), particularly when modifying a comparative adverb or adjective. Πολλῳ μᾶλον, “much more” (more by much), is a common GNT phrase, where μᾶλον is a comparative adverb modified adverbially by a dative adjective. This common phrase is a close but not exact parallel of John 4:41, because μᾶλον is an adverb.

We see the dative adjective (pronominal) modifying the comparative adjective adverbially two times in Hebrews 1:4 (and 10:29) as a nearly exact parallel:

τοσούτῳ κρείττων γενόμενος τῶν ἀγγέλων ὅσῳ διαφορώτερον παρ’ αὐτοὺς κεκληρονόμηκεν ὄνομα (as much better)

This dative adverbial construction is grammatical but infrequent (although frequent with nouns). Note that the comparative adjective takes a genitive object of comparison, but a dative adverbial. And note that in John 4:41 πλείων is comparative. Although the exact construction with a dative adjective (by class) like πολλῷ modifying an adjective adverbially does not occur elsewhere in the completed quarter of the GNT (remember the two levels of adjectives) and thus might seem irregular to the student, nevertheless, the Hebrew parallels are exact using the broader definition of adjectives. So they are close enough to understand and legitimize the language pattern in John.

Also note that the adjective πλείων is substantival in John 4:41 (subject), but this function does not hinder πολλῷ from modifying it adverbially as an adjective. The case of the head (nominative) and its function are irrelevant to the adjective-modifies-adjective-adverbially idiom. They are like the extraneous fact in the algebra problem.

I dismiss the syntactical option of making πολλῷ adverbial to the verb (instead of the adjective) because πλείων is the first positional candidate for head by juxtaposition and since neuter dative adjectives modifying a verb are very rare and it appears semantically incorrect here.

—Dennis Kenaga