tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post8608714473998336585..comments2023-10-20T07:28:50.948-07:00Comments on Better Bibles Blog: The Holy Spirit — repriseWayne Lemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18024771201561767893noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-18453290173722112942008-04-13T21:28:00.000-07:002008-04-13T21:28:00.000-07:00Aristotle was a jerk, therefore, everything he sai...<I>Aristotle was a jerk, therefore, everything he said is wrong -- even when he got it right.</I><BR/><BR/>Now did I really say that, Rich? REally, that sounds more like something Aristotle himself would say. He was hung up, wasn't he?, on getting everything right. And on telling his students he was always right. He hides behind his logical method, and "nature" which he observes objectively, and rightly, or so it seems. Let's agree not to call him a "prescriptivist" then. He wants so badly to be a "descriptivist." (He probably wouldn't care that we barbarians are quibbling over him. He'd be amused that Suzanne would agree with any non Greek man like Peter or me that he's a sexist and a racist.) But, by us, he gets so much "right"; let's agree to keep his brush as clean of tar as possible. Especially if we're going to use his brush now and again.<BR/><BR/>But why was Homer not "right" by Aristotle's description of Greek grammar, when in the epic Illiad (9.366) there's this:<BR/><BR/>ἠ γυναῖκας ἐϋζώνους<BR/><BR/>which Aristotle, by either a descriptive or a prescriptive rule, would want to make "right" as this:<BR/><BR/>ἠ γυναῖκας ἠ ἐϋζώνους<BR/><BR/>or more concisely as this:<BR/><BR/>ἠ ἐϋζώνους γυναῖκας <BR/><BR/>??<BR/><BR/>Compare that with Aristotle's rule in the Rhetoric as noted above.J. K. Gaylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07600312868663460988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-62581507369683932492008-04-12T17:33:00.000-07:002008-04-12T17:33:00.000-07:00Time out, folks.You can only tell the difference b...Time out, folks.<BR/><BR/>You can only tell the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammar if there are options. The prescriptivist wants to limit the options because one is "good" and one is "bad".<BR/><BR/>So Miss Frump, your high school English teacher, says <I>ain't</I> is bad grammar, and that's prescriptive, because <I>ain't</I> is a perfectly legitimate (if somewhat marked) English word and there are times when it's, in fact, necessary to use it. It happens in non-essay writing all the time. <I>If Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.</I><BR/><BR/>When Aristotle says what can loosely be translated/interpreted as: "Article noun adjective in that order is ungrammatical without a copy of the article between the noun and the adjective, or you can put the adjective in front of the noun", that's descriptive. Native speakers for hundreds of years never did otherwise, not because they read Aristotle but because long before they could read, they learned it that way at their mother's knee (which is what I was using "natural" to say). And recognizing what's natural is not dangerous at all.<BR/><BR/>The existence of grammatical pronouncements in the face of a need for language teaching in a prelinguistic era should hardly be taken amiss either. <A HREF="http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003743.html" REL="nofollow">Fries</A> (Pike's teacher) was not a prescriptivist by any means, but he wrote books telling you how to put English sentences together. He could easily be read as prescriptivist.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Kurk wrote:<BR/><I>If you're a linguist, a descriptivist now, who believes in the theological doctrine of plenary inspiration of the Bible, then you tend to say the grammar that's in the Bible is "natural"; you want it to be "natural" because it surely was always and only the way it is.</I><BR/><BR/>No. The "naturalness" has nothing to doing with the status of the Bible. One can say a lot about what's natural in Roman era eastern Mediterranean Greek because there is a lot of extra-Biblical evidence which tells us that the language that appears in the Bible is natural for the Greek of that area during that time.<BR/><BR/>It's also a mistake to infer that that I somehow think that Greek grammar is monolithic because the one "rule" I talk about (which addresses how attributives, nouns, and articles interact) remains stable for something like 600 years. There are lots of such "rules" in Elizabethan English that still work today.<BR/><BR/>And ... I don't really care if Aristotle was a pompous ass and mouthpiece for The Man (as Kurk will not let us forget), he can still make valid observations about points of Greek grammar, even if he phrases them as if they were prescriptive -- and we don't really get to rail at him for it.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Kurk, for my money you charge a lot of guilt by association. Aristotle was a jerk, therefore, everything he said is wrong -- even when he got it right. (And he got a lot right, or at least he got close enough to right for most purposes.)<BR/><BR/>Every time we say something that Aristotle happened to get right, then we're tarred with his brush.<BR/><BR/>That really doesn't help.Richard A. Rhodeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14227550014596898280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-43289559817719027432008-04-10T12:01:00.001-07:002008-04-10T12:01:00.001-07:00;-);-)Suzanne McCarthyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07033350578895908993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-45977708200945456332008-04-10T12:01:00.000-07:002008-04-10T12:01:00.000-07:00Hah, I told you so!Hah, I told you so!Suzanne McCarthyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07033350578895908993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-803144011510039672008-04-10T11:14:00.000-07:002008-04-10T11:14:00.000-07:00This just confirms to me that Aristotle was a very...This just confirms to me that Aristotle was a very bad person. Not only was he sexist, racist and all sorts of other undesirable -ists, he was a prescriptive grammarian! Now he is right down there on my list of bad people with Grudem, Piper, Driscoll and Rowan Williams. ;-)Peter Kirkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13395635409427347613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-62018593809433095212008-04-10T08:47:00.000-07:002008-04-10T08:47:00.000-07:00Thanks Wayne. You said "I doubt that he is a post...Thanks Wayne. You said "I doubt that he is a postmodernist." I do hope Rich will speak for himself again, and I'm with you: "he's no postmodernist!"<BR/><BR/>But for him to say there's only one Greek grammar to describe, and that Aristotle is following Rich by simply describing "natural" Greek grammar is to transcend time too. Such conflating of past and present practices is what <I>sounds</I> postmodern. It's like Ishmael Reed having the U.S. slaves escape north on a jumbo jet in <I>Flight to Canada</I>. Well, they did get there somehow didn't they? Rich sounds like he's giving Aristotle a first class seat on the plane with him. <BR/><BR/>But there is a great history of prescriptive grammar influence of Aristotle. He's no descriptive linguist. He, with Plato, despises many of the poets, and most all of the sophists, for their Greek. Right before his gives his article use prescriptive, he denigrates the writing of Heraclitus. As he tells what to avoid in article usage, he praises other poets and names Antimachus. Then he turns again now against the poetry of Cleophon (taking a jab at Isocrates, who Plato teaches against).<BR/><BR/>The point? To look at just some Greek grammar as "natural" is dangerous. If you're Aristotle, a prescriptivist way back then, then you're trying to get people to write and speak as you think they should. If you're a linguist, a descriptivist now, who believes in the theological doctrine of plenary inspiration of the Bible, then you tend to say the grammar that's in the Bible is "natural"; you want it to be "natural" because it surely was always and only the way it is.<BR/><BR/>Maybe we don't want Aristotle to influence our Bible and its Greek translation and its "original" Greek so much. But to say he's not a giving grammar prescriptions (in the long tradition of Greek writing handbooks) and, rather, that he's simply trying to describe what's on Rich's descriptivist table is to miss much.<BR/><BR/>Rich could not as easily say Blair, Campbell, and Whately simply describe English grammar the way he does now. Why not? Because Rich will more easily admit to the many English language grammars outside of the prescriptive provinces of such handbook writers.<BR/><BR/>What I'd like to hear Rich deny (if he can distance himself from postmodern sounding practice) is that his theology of plenary inspiration does not get in the way of his would-be descriptive linguistics, when it comes to the Greek of the Bible.J. K. Gaylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07600312868663460988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-51012281915839030092008-04-09T16:25:00.000-07:002008-04-09T16:25:00.000-07:00Kurk wrote:That certainly sounds like a postmodern...Kurk wrote:<BR/><BR/><I>That certainly sounds like a postmodern perspective.</I><BR/><BR/>I don't think so, Kurk. What Rich stated was traditional descriptive linguistics which has been around a long time. Descriptive linguists focus on the data as it is, as people actually speak a language.<BR/><BR/>Postmodernism focuses on interpretation of what people say, as I understand it. Rich can speak for himself, but I doubt that he is a postmodernist. He has repeatedly emphasized how strongly he believes in the importance of the original text, its original meaning. I don't think he would want to be finding a variety of meanings within that text based on what different readers get from that text today. It is very anti-(and ante-)postmodern to emphasize natural language and authorial intentions.Wayne Lemanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18024771201561767893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-85389742427779927002008-04-09T04:11:00.000-07:002008-04-09T04:11:00.000-07:00Rich, You say: "I read Aristotle as simply trying...Rich, <BR/>You say: "<I>I read Aristotle as simply trying to express what I put in my little table. <BR/><BR/>I don't see that he has anything to say to us that we don't already know . . .<BR/><BR/>I'd argue that accomplished Greek speakers arranged their articles and adjectives the way they did because this is part of 'natural' Greek grammar, not because Aristotle told them to.</I>"<BR/><BR/>That certainly sounds like a postmodern perspective. We today come before Aristotle way back then, and he follows us. <BR/><BR/>As for your last statement (the third one here): of course Aristotle followed the ostensibly "natural"; that <I>was</I> his game--to name the "natural" as if he himself was not constructing it. The problem you make not assuming his influence is, I think, a huge problem. First, it ignores more generally the power and influence of the grammar handbook tradition of the Greeks (which Aristotle is all too eager to "correct" at various points; and which he even uses as the raison d'être for the <I>Rhetoric</I>, which opens with a complaint about "all" the other previous professors of the art of communication). We see this very power in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in the the U.K. with the advent of prescriptive writing and rhetoric handbooks of Hugh Blair, George Campbell, and Richard Whately. To say that Aristotle or Blair, Campbell, and Whately were simply codifying the "common" and "natural" practices of grammar ignores their measurable influence. Second, the context in which Aristotle gives his prescription (the one I've quoted in comments here) shows that he is giving his prescriptions in contrast to named users of bad Greek grammar. Third, then, why does getting history right make a difference? Who cares if Aristotle influences us or if he's just doing, with us now, what "always" was done by most "everyone"? You tell me. The subtle influence of men on us, what's it's power over us if we can just project back on them some kind of benign and mere descriptivism that professor linguists would assume for themselves. I'd say we may want to be careful not to assume too much "objectivity."<BR/><BR/>Interestingly, and amusingly perhaps, Jesus had to address this whole question of influence when his practices and his preaching countered the "natural" traditions of the Law. (This was, of course, much higher stakes for everyone than where to put the Greek article or when to front a Greek adjective in a Greek noun phrase). In Mark 3:29, Mark (or is it Peter) translates Jesus' Aramaic as τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον. But Luke (or is it Paul), in Lk 12:10 makes it the concise τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα.<BR/><BR/>Mark and Luke follow Aristotle's "natural" rule. <BR/><BR/>(And so we should just add that Aristotle also had natural rules about non-Greek barbarians, about slaves, and about females, which all too many have received as well. He had rules for syllogistic logic which we've not as easily questioned. Jesus practiced and preached against such "nature.")J. K. Gaylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07600312868663460988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-57082297351793073602008-04-07T20:59:00.000-07:002008-04-07T20:59:00.000-07:00Mike,I'll check out what Fee has to say.Mike,<BR/>I'll check out what Fee has to say.Richard A. Rhodeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14227550014596898280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-36306882111242500712008-04-07T16:46:00.000-07:002008-04-07T16:46:00.000-07:00Carl,A postscript.Sorry I misread your original co...Carl,<BR/>A postscript.<BR/><BR/>Sorry I misread your original comment.<BR/><BR/>For some reason, Swanson, Kohlenberger, and Goodrick list multiple word expressions with citation forms instead of inflecting the forms appropriately, as if they wanted to write μεγάλ- φων(ή)-, but couldn't bring themselves to do so. I should have done the sensible thing, because, you're right. It's confusing otherwise.<BR/><BR/>(I'll make the correction forthwith.)Richard A. Rhodeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14227550014596898280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-90017930263917182432008-04-07T16:31:00.000-07:002008-04-07T16:31:00.000-07:00Carl W. Conrad, I very pleased to see you in these...Carl W. Conrad, I very pleased to see you in these quarters. I really have enjoyed your Greek input on BGreek.tcrobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02518043696892409099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-31437878805817587042008-04-07T14:22:00.000-07:002008-04-07T14:22:00.000-07:00I don't know if i would consider Fee a theologian ...I don't know if i would consider Fee a theologian - he's first an textual critic, second an exegete, and third perhaps a theologian. His focus is very much on evidence though - chapter 2 of the book mentioned focuses on the statics of the HS in Paul, particularly with reference usage of the article. Its worth reading. The chapter is linguistic and exegetical - not theological.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-54509224626699648612008-04-07T10:58:00.000-07:002008-04-07T10:58:00.000-07:00Kurk,I read Aristotle as simply trying to express ...Kurk,<BR/>I read Aristotle as simply trying to express what I put in my little table. Whatever the difference in meaning or emphasis in noun adjective order was to him, it was not so obvious that he could articulate it. (Not an uncommon reaction to certain kinds of subtle distinctions.)<BR/><BR/>I don't see that he has anything to say to us that we don't already know from the absence of art noun adjective (as NP) in the corpus.<BR/><BR/>I'd argue that accomplished Greek speakers arranged their articles and adjectives the way they did because this is part of "natural" Greek grammar, not because Aristotle told them to. I can, however, buy that there are things in both the LXX and NT (or at least those parts written by native speakers) that bear influences of Classical Greek, and not just Aristotle.Richard A. Rhodeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14227550014596898280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-65355073870654055912008-04-07T10:44:00.000-07:002008-04-07T10:44:00.000-07:00Mike,I tend not to look at the theologians precise...Mike,<BR/>I tend not to look at the theologians precisely because I want to be sure that there is an argument for whatever position based on what can be derived from the text alone.<BR/><BR/>The other reason I want to dig deeper into the text <I>sans</I> theology is that all the available Greek grammar is decades (if not a century) old. We know enormously more about how to figure out how to interpret things in dead languages with large corpora than we knew even as recently as 20 years ago. None of this new information has gotten anywhere near the theologians. (Latin scholars tend to be better about this than Greek scholars, for some reason, although there are a few Greek scholars who are first rate at it. Unfortunatley, they work on Classical Greek rather than Koine.)Richard A. Rhodeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14227550014596898280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-81603902300289922132008-04-07T10:31:00.000-07:002008-04-07T10:31:00.000-07:00Carl,I didn't mean finding φωνὴ μέγας or μέγας φων...Carl,<BR/>I didn't mean finding φωνὴ μέγας or μέγας φωνή in the nominative. I meant finding the expression in some case (with or without the article). It is typical of concordances to list phrases that way. For example, <A HREF="http://www.zondervan.com/Cultures/en-US/Product/ProductDetail.htm?ProdID=com.zondervan.9780310402206&QueryStringSite=Zondervan" REL="nofollow">Swanson, Kohlenberger, and Goodrick</A> list multiple word expressions this way at the beginning of each entry. <BR/><BR/>For the expression under discussion they list:<BR/><BR/>μέγας φωνή (40) Mt. 27:46,50; Mk 1:26; 5:7; 15:34, 37; etc. etc.<BR/><BR/>I counted 38 rather than 40 as true NPs (as opposed to these words being in other construction), and the vast majority were in the dative, without an article, in neutral order, i.e., φωνὴ μεγάλη 'with a loud voice', 'with a shout'.<BR/><BR/>Does that answer your question?Richard A. Rhodeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14227550014596898280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-50674084032672916932008-04-07T10:30:00.000-07:002008-04-07T10:30:00.000-07:00Rich, have you taken a look at Gordon Fee's discus...Rich, have you taken a look at Gordon Fee's discussion of almost this very same issue in the introduction to <I>God's Empowering Presence</I>? <BR/><BR/>He makes some interesting observations there. Unfortunately, I don't have it near me to summarize.<BR/><BR/>Mike<BR/><BR/>PS - I hope you saw my last comment about not intending to define the semantic significance of the two positions.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-37084241922301859922008-04-07T08:18:00.000-07:002008-04-07T08:18:00.000-07:00Peter Kirk (in a comment earlier in this series) s...Peter Kirk (<A HREF="http://englishbibles.blogspot.com/2008/03/things-are-not-what-they-seem.html?showComment=1206566460000#c4629327217576985753" REL="nofollow">in a comment earlier in this series</A>) suggests that Isaiah 63:10,11 in LXX was one of the earliest Greek translations of the Hebrew OT. I want to suggest (given my note on Aristotle's prescription above), that Aristotle had great influence on students who, in Alexandria Egypt, authorized and began the Septuagint translation work. This then sets the precedent for Luke and others writing the NT to adopt (if to modify) some of the Greek grammar.<BR/><BR/>Compare Acts 15:8 (τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον) with Isaiah 63:10 (τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον) and 63:11 (τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον). So if Luke or the LXX translators knew of Aristotle's rule, how might they have changed the phrase to make it more concise?J. K. Gaylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07600312868663460988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-14496858260998647802008-04-07T08:10:00.000-07:002008-04-07T08:10:00.000-07:00Now I feel like such a Greekgeek:Aristotle writes ...Now I feel like such a Greekgeek:<BR/><BR/>Aristotle writes explicit (perhaps prescriptive) instructions to his students on the use of articles and the fronting of adjectives. Here's one from the <I>Rhetoric</I> Book III, Chapter 6, v.5:<BR/><BR/>και μη ἐπιζευγνύναι, ἀλλ ἑκατε ρῳ ἑκα τερον, “τη̂ς γυναικος τη̂ς ἡμετέρας”: ἐὰν δὲ συντόμως, τοὐναντίον, “τη̂ς ἡμετέρας γυναικος”. <BR/><BR/>John Freese and George Kennedy see Aristotle's example here as so clear and so clearly important that neither translates it. Here respectively are Freese then Kennedy (who transliterates the Greek example):<BR/><BR/>"You should avoid linking up, but each word should have it's own article: τη̂ς γυναικος τη̂ς ἡμετέρας. But for conciseness, the reverse: τη̂ς ἡμετέρας γυναικος"<BR/><BR/>"And do not join [words with a single definite article] but use one article with each: <I>tēs gynaikos tēs hēmeteras</I>; but for conciseness the opposite: <I>tēs hēmeteras gynaikos</I>."<BR/><BR/>(and here's Rhys Roberts who does translate everything into English but who loses much in his translation: "Do not bracket two words under one article, but put one article with each; e.g. 'that wife of ours.' The reverse to secure conciseness; e.g. 'our wife.'")J. K. Gaylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07600312868663460988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-63894983216203039192008-04-07T03:18:00.000-07:002008-04-07T03:18:00.000-07:00I don't find φωνὴ μέγας or μέγας φωνή at all in th...I don't find φωνὴ μέγας or μέγας φωνή at all in the GNT, but I find φωνὴ μεγάλη in various case forms 35x.Carl W. Conradhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00238663399363615395noreply@blogger.com