Gary Brower's question re: "price vs. honor"
The cleanest and simplest answer to Gary's question is this:
"Agorazo" as a very takes the accusative of the thing bought,
and the genitive of the price paid. [Correct "very" to "verb"!]
Hence: "Glaucon bought [agorazo] a boy-slave[accusative]
10,00 obols[genitive]." = "Glaucon bought a boy-slave for 10,000 obols."
Also: "Glaucon bought a slave[accusative] a price[genitive]
not yet agreed-on." = "Glaucon bought a slave for an as yet not agreed-on
price." Here the standard word for "price" is "time".
"Time" as a noun with a verb for buying or selling almost
invariably is in the genitive, and means "for a price." Any other
noun referring to exchange, barter, or value with a verb meaning to
buy or sell, when in the genitive refers to the price paid. Hence
the so-called "genitive of price" (which is an interpretive category,
of course, but which is virtually universal with verbs of buying or
What is crucial is investigating the grammar-patterns associated
with a noun, not simply lexical possibilities. In this particular
statement (1 Cor 6:20), taking "times" as
"honor" would force this meaning: "You were bought; the price paid was
honor." But that is a curious notion; and since the very thing one looks for
after "agorazo" is a genitive giving the price, and the very word in the
genitive IS the word "price" itself, the alternative (odd) meaning is
certainly quite dubious.
(Gary's first Greek professor, in Berkeley)