From: Carl W. Conrad (firstname.lastname@example.org)
Date: Fri Nov 03 2000 - 10:42:45 EST
At 7:21 AM -0600 11/3/00, Denny A Diehl wrote:
>Denny Diehl to Carlton Winbery,
>Thank you for your response!
>> >requesting help on ETEKNOTROFHSE
>> >as found in 1 Tim 5:10
>> >why is it singular and translated plural
>> >"she has brought up children"?
> > Are you
>> asking why it is not translated "If she has brought up a child" ??
>> Most lexicons give the referent of this verb as "to rear children."
>> I suppose it simply refers to the act of rearing children in any
>> number, but the number of the verb (certainly singular here) has
>> nothing to do with that.
>Does ETEKNOTROFHSE have a plural form that is used?
>Also, as to number of children (singular or plural) could this
>usage suggest a difference with TEKNA in 1 Tim 5:4 or, for
>that matter, in 1 Tim 3:4?
I don't quite understand what the problem is here; TEKNO-FOREW (my
artificial hyphenation) uses the simple-stem form of the word TEKNON (it is
an O-stem noun and shows NO case or number ending here) in the sense
"child-bear"--the verb doesn't differentiate the number of children born
whether that be one only or as many as the old woman in the shoe. As for
the other verses you cite,
3:4 TEKNA ECONTA EN hUPTAGHi
5:4 EI DE TIS CHRA TEKNA H EKGONA ECEI ...,
the NOUN in them happens to be plural, but I would certainly assume that
the plural-number indicator is meant to imply that these descriptions don't
apply if the person concerned has only ONE child. It seems to me you're
looking for a differentiation of number where it is irrelevant to what is
being said. The translation, "If she has brought up children" IMPLICITLY
includes a woman who has brought up only one child.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [email@example.com]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to firstname.lastname@example.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:36:40 EDT