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The Greek Syntax of Luke 2. 141

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

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Short Studies
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

page 472 note 2 Westcott, B. D., and Hort, F. J. A., The New Testament in the Original Greek, 2 vols.: (1)Google ScholarText, (2) Introduction [and] Appendix (2) (Cambridge and London, 1881 and 1896). The text edition used for this article was: Aland, K., Black, M., Martini, C. M., Metzger, B. M., and Wikgren, A., The Greek New Testaments (Münster/Westphalia, 1966). See their bibliography (pp. lv–lxii).Google Scholar

page 472 note 3 See (e.g.) Plummer, A., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to S. Luke 5 (Edinburgh, 1922) 57–9;Google ScholarJeremias, J., ‘Anthrôpoi eudokias (Lc. 2.14)’, ZNW, 28 (1929) 1320;Google ScholarMetzger, B. M., A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London and N.Y., 1971);Google ScholarFitzmyer, J. A., S. J., The Gospel According to Luke (I–IX). Introduction, Translation and Notes (New York, 1981) 409–12, 414–17Google Scholar (Bibliography). Fitzmyer has made the vast scholarly work done on Luke accessible even to non-specialists.

page 472 note 4 Preference for the distich is usual these days. (Fitzmyer, op. cit., p. 411); but Alford, (The Greek Testament 5 [London and Cambridge, 1883] 459)Google Scholar, while supporting -ίας, would accept the ‘received’ text as ‘a Hebrew parallelism, in which the third clause is subordinate to and an amplification of the second, and so is without a copula to it’.

page 472 note 5 So Metzger. Ropes, J. M., on the other hand (‘Good will toward men [Luke 2.14]’, HTR [1917] 52–6)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues that -ίας is not difficilior, but rather a ‘correction’ to accommodate the false construction of δóξα…άνθρώποıς. He takes έν ύψίστοıς καί έπί γς together (of δóξα), balanced by είρήνη έν άνθρώποıς. The genitive εύδοκίας would have some function in the passage; the nominative, none.

page 472 note 6 See E. Vogt, S.J., ‘“Peace among men of God's good pleasure” Lc. 2.14’, [in] Stendahl, K. (ed.), The Scrolls and the New Testament (New York, 1957) 114–17;Google ScholarFitzmyer, J. A., S.J., ‘“Peace upon earth among men of his good will”’, [in] Fitzmyer, J. A. (ed.), Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament (London, 1971) 101–4;Google Scholar [and] The Gospel of St. Luke, op. cit., 411–12Google Scholar (bibliography, p. 412).

page 473 note 1 See also Fitzmyer, ad loc. (I, 411).Google Scholar

page 473 note 2 See Vogt, , op. cit., 117Google Scholar (‘But the Qumran texts do more than lend decisive support to this reading.’), and Fitzmyer, , ‘Peace upon earth’, 104Google Scholar (‘The occurrence of the same phrase in both languages indicates its common and frequent usage and confirms the interpretation that Dr. Hunzinger first suggested.’). Marshall, I. H. (The Gospel of Luke. A Commentary on the Greek Text [Exeter, 1978])Google Scholar sees the genitive reading ‘raised to virtually certainty’ on the basis of the Qumran parallels. For the evidence of the Coptic mss. see Plumley, J. M., ‘Limitations of Coptic (Sahidic) in representing Greek’, in B. M. Metzger, The Early Versions of the New Testament (Oxford, 1977) 141–52.Google Scholar (The Bohairic text represents -ία, The Sahidic, -ίας.) See also Fitzmyer, , op. cit., 102.Google Scholar

page 473 note 3 See Fitzmyer, , I, 411.Google Scholar

page 473 note 4 Fitzmyer, , op. cit., 113–16.Google Scholar

page 473 note 5 Fitzmyer, , op. cit., 118.Google Scholar

page 473 note 6 Jerome, Ep. ad Damasum 20.4.4. See Fitzmyer, op. cit., 107–27.Google Scholar Jerome also claims that Luke avoided foreign expressions that would trouble a reader: ‘evangelium Graecis scripsit, quia se vidit proprietatem sermonis transferee non posse, melius arbitratus est tacere quam id ponere quod legenti faceret quaestionem’. See Norden, E., Die Antike Kunstprosa 4 (Leipzig, 1923) 2, 482.Google Scholar

page 473 note 7 Fitzmyer, , op. cit., 109–13.Google Scholar See also Bruce, F. F., The Acts of the Apostles. The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary 2 (Grand Rapids, 1952) 26–8.Google Scholar

page 473 note 8 Metzger, B. M., A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London and N.Y., 1971) 18;Google Scholar and Fitzmyer, , op. cit., 411.Google Scholar

page 474 note 1 See Jeremias's, J. parallels (op. cit., 16).Google Scholar The two closest are τς άναστσεως υίοί (Lc. 20. 36) and οί υίοί τς Βασıλείας (Matt 8. 12, 13. 38). But in both instances, the article suggests an external source of the attribute; contrast υίòς είρήνης (Lc 20. 6) ‘one inclined to peace’. (See Plummer, ad loc.). If Luke had written τς εύδοκίας or εύδοκίας αύτο, his sense would certainly have been clearer. (Whether οί υίοί το φωτóς (Lc 16. 9) and τά τέκνα φωτóς [Eph 5. 8] are much different is hard to say.) In the latter, the light is identified as έν Κυρίῳ and is to be recognised έν πάση άγαθωσύνύ καί δıκαıοσύνῃ καί άληθείᾳ (5. 9). υίο τς άγάπης αύτο (Col 1. 3) is doubly clarified by the article plus the pronoun, but without at least one of the two it would mean ‘loving person’, not ‘loved person’.

page 474 note 2 Cf. also 1 Chron 16. 10 (LXX only); Ps 5. 13 (person is in the verb, no pronoun necessary), Ps 19. 15, Ps 51. 20 (article and pronoun), Ps 85. 2, 8 (many pronouns for God – person is in the verb εύδόκησας [2]); Eph. 15, 1. 9.

page 474 note 3 See Fitzmyer, , ‘Peace on earth’, 102.Google Scholar In this same article (note 2, p. 270) Fitzmyer also cites a Hebrew Text, ‘the elect of his good pleasure’ (1 QS viii 6: behire rason), without any pro-noun. The notion ‘elect’ itself may suggest the pronoun reference there, but άνθρώποıς does not (nor would τέκνοıς or υίοîς; τοîς έκλεκτοîς εύδοκίας might be acceptable as LXX Greek, but is not found.

page 474 note 4 See Fitzmyer, , I, 411–12;Google Scholar and Metzger's arguments (op. cit., 411–12)Google Scholar against ‘human’ εύδοκία at 2. 14, based mainly on the Qumran parallels. See also ‘εύδοκία’ (Schrenk) in Kittel, G., Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, Zweiter Band: Δ-H (Stuttgart, 1935) 740–8;Google Scholar also Hatch, E., Redpath, H. A., A Concordance to the Septuagint, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1897).Google Scholar