At 3:50 PM -0600 1/20/97, FRED HALTOM wrote:
>Randy Leedy wrote:
>
>As long as we're on the "other-than-genitive absolute" topic, I'll put
>up another idea to be shot down, which is that there is such a thing
>as a dative absolute. I see a good many constructions that look for
>all the world like absolutes to me, except that they're not in the
>genitive. Since the nominative and the accusative are being shot down,
>perhaps this dative can be shot down as well. Matt 8:23--KAI EMBANTI
>AUTWi EIS TO PLOION, HKOLOUQHSAN AUTWi hOI MAQHTAI AUTOU. I assume
>that the response will be that this is not a dative absolute since
>Jesus is already in the governing clause in the dative. But my answer
>would be that the repetition of AUTWi invalidates this claim; the
>first one is unnecessary if the construction is not an absolute (cf.
>Mt. 21:23, where DIDASKONTI is a simple circumstantial ptcp modifying
>AUTWi in the governing clause).
I don't know whether the construction in Mt 8:23 quite falls under the
heading of a Semitism. I agree that either the first or the second AUTWi is
superfluous. On the other hand, I really can't believe that the fact that
the participle and pronoun in the first part are dative is purely arbitrary
and has nothing whatsoever to do with the verb HKOLOUQHSAN being one that
regularly construes with a dative. The construction is loose, the AUTWi
redundant, but wouldn't it be silly to argue that the dative case of
EMBANTI AUTWi is unrelated to the fact that the verb of the main clause is
HKOLOUQHSAN?
>If this construction can be rejected on that basis as an example of
>the dative absolute, then what do we do with Matt. 5:1? Do we say that
>KAQISANTOS AUTOU is not a genitive absolute because AUTOU (separate
>word) is in the main clause? If we're going to maintain that Matt. 5:1
>is a genitive absolute, then I can't see how we'll avoid calling 8:23,
>a precise parallel other than the case, a dative absolute.
Mt 5:1 IDWN DE TOUS OCLOUS ANEBH EIS TO OROS, KAI KAQISANTOS AUTOU
PROSHLQAN AUTWi hOI MAQHTAI AUTOU. Well, I would say that this is not very
elegant composition; much neater would be KAQISANTI DE AUTWi PROSHLQAN hOI
MAQHTAI--but I would not call that a dative absolute. I WOULD call the
existing construction in 5:1 a genitive absolute because this sort of usage
of a genitive substantive and a participle to indicate circumstances
bearing upon the event set forth in the main clause is a recurrent
syntactical pattern going back for centuries in Greek usage. That instance
of the dative is isolated and is surely not unrelated to the fact that the
main verb normally takes a dative complement.
I think that's enough on absolutes for me for a while. I hope I've made my
perspective clear but I readily understand the preference others have or
explaining these constructions in a different way.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/