In his book A Stylometric Study of the New Testament, Anthony Kenny writes:

The Fribergs divide the Greek conjunctions of the New Testament into three classes. The two clauses or propositions of structures which are joined by a conjunction may be intended to have equal prominence in their context, or one may be given greater weight than another. Accordingly, the conjunctions which link them may be classed as co-ordinating (giving equal weight), as subordinating (introducing a clause less prominent than that to which it is linked), or as hyperordinating (introducing a clause more prominent than that to which it is linked). Thus every conjunction will be tagged either CC, CS or CH. (Kenny, 32).

Based on what I've learned about αλλα, my understanding is that αλλα should always be, in the Fribergs terminology, "hyperordinating". But an examination of their analysis shows that of the 638 NT instances, the Fribergs tag 553 of them hyperordinating (aka "superordinating"), 84 of them as coordinating, and one instance as subordinating. This post examines Rev 2.9, the lone "subordinating" αλλα in the NT.

Οἶδά σου τὴν θλῖψιν καὶ τὴν πτωχείαν, ἀλλὰ πλούσιος εἶ, καὶ τὴν βλασφημίαν ἐκ τῶν λεγόντων Ἰουδαίους εἶναι ἑαυτοὺς καὶ οὐκ εἰσὶν ἀλλὰ συναγωγὴ τοῦ Σατανᾶ. (Rev 2.9, UBS4)

I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. (Rev 2.9, ESV)

There are two αλλα in this verse; according to the Fribergs, the "subordinating" αλλα is the first, τὴν πτωχείαν, ἀλλὰ πλούσιος εἶ ("and your poverty (but you are rich)"). The second is "hyperordinating" (what would be expected).

So, what is it about the first instance that is different? Is it because the αλλα clause is seen as secondary to the primary clause; an in-stream parenthetical comment that doesn't seem to add much to the larger structure? The larger point seems to be built around the comparison between "your tribulation and your poverty and the slander ...", with the party doing the slandering further qualified as not Jews (though they confess to be Jews) but instead a "synagogue of Satan". In this latter instance, "the synagogue of Satan" has the prominence (indeed, Fribergs mark it as hyperordinating, thus it being the "more important" of the conjoined items). This is fairly standard with αλλα, the following statement offering correction to the first one and highlighting the correction.

[Note: The following paragraph has been added subsequent to the original post]

Upon further reflection, I believe the compared clauses are "I know your affliction and poverty" and "but you are rich". The corrective response is not simply to the note of poverty; "affliction" and "poverty" are one unit, joined by και (and perhaps too the genitive phrase following the αλλα?); the correction is to that unit, not simply to being poor.

[Back to the original post]

I'd argue the same thing for the earlier instance. In the context of the two conjoined items, "your poverty, but you are rich" it is the encouragement of the author to his audience. This is the letter "to the angel of the church in Ephesus", thus these words are from Christ to that church. While they find themselves temporally poor, they are to be encouraged that in fact they are rich in what matters. While their circumstances are tough, those circumstances will change—indeed, they already have begun to change. To me, this as well seems to be the basic "corrective" use of αλλα, correcting the first item and marking the correction as the important, salient bit in the comparison of elements.

I'd have to say that, at least with the first instance of αλλα in Rev 2.9, the Friberg's morphology should mark it as "conjunction, superordinating (hyperordinating)" instead of "conjunction, subordinating".

This as well serves as a case to show once again why I don't like such morpho-syntactic labels applied at the word level; it leads many who use such data to think there is something about αλλα itself in this instance that is "subordinating" or "hyperordinating". In reality, the conjunction morphology (part-of-speech) is just a convienent place to hang this item when it rightly belongs at a higher level of the annotation. But since "morphologies" only consider words as data tokens, they only have words to hang such data on—whether it rightly belongs on the word (as several "morphological" criteria do) or whether it rightly belongs at a higher level of the discourse (marking phrasal relations, clausal relations, or discourse-level relations).

While I am fairly sure that the Fribergs don't intend to mark αλλα itself as somehow morphologically producing a "hyperordinating", "coordinating" or "subordinating" result, less-informed use of such resources could easily make (and attempt to defend) such a conclusion. This is a common problem, and it is visible everywhere in everything. Calvin would (rightly) dispute against many who claim to be "Calvinists" as having misrepresented his thought; Darwin would also (rightly) dispute many who claim to be "Darwinists".

Anyway, enough from me. I don't know that I'll work through the 84 "coordinating" instances of αλλα to show how I would instead consider them to be "hyperordinating". But you never know. Maybe. In case you want to peek at them, here are the references:

Mt 24:6; Mk 3:27; 4:22; 6:9; 11:32; 13:7, 24; 14:28, 49; 16:7; Lk 6:27; 7:25, 7:26; 11:42; 16:21; 21:9; 23:15; 24:21, 22; Jn 1:31; 3:28; 5:42; 6:22, 36, 64; 8:26; 11:11; 14:31; 15:21, 25; 16:2, 4, 6, 7, 20; Ac 10:20; 19:2; 26:16; Ro 4:2; 5:15; 6:5; 10:2, 16, 18, 19; 11:4; 1Co 2:9; 3:2; 4:3, 4; 6:6, 11(3x); 1 Co 6:12(2x); 7:7; 8:7; 9:12; 10:5; 12:24; 15:35, 40, 46; 2Co 1:9; 7:11(6x); 8:7; 11:1; Ga 4:8; 4:23; Eph 5:24; Php 1:18; 2:17; 1Ti 1:16; Heb 3:16; Jas 2:18; 1Pe 3:16; Re 2:6; 10:7.

If you don't read Mike Aubrey's blog, ΕΝ ΕΦΕΣΩ, then you should. His post of this morning "Challenges for Literal Translation: Lessons from 4 Maccabees" is excellent. He's thinking through translation issues, but using a non-canonical text (4 Maccabees) as his springboard.

Even though quoting one's self can be self-serving (hey, it's a blog ... it's supposed to be self-serving!), here's what I wrote as a comment to his post:

I think working through these issues in non-canonical text from roughly the same era is a valuable thing. It causes us to start focusing on the text itself and what it communicates, not on what our presuppositions and heritage have already determined it should say.

I’ve found similar exercises with the writings of the Apostolic Fathers extremely valuable.

And I have. The most recent example is the post previous to this, on EpDiog 5.7.

Ran across this while reading EpDiog awhile back so I thought I'd blog it.

Here's the Greek, from Holmes' 2nd edition (matches his 3rd edition):

τράπεζαν κοινὴν παρατίθενται, ἀλλʼ οὐ κοίτην.

Here are all the English translations of EpDiog 5.7 I have to hand, in chronological order:

• They have their meals in common, but not their wives. (Lightfoot)
• They offer free hospitality, but guard their purity. (Lake)
• Free board they provide, but not their carnal bed. (Meecham)
• They share their food but not their wives. (Holmes, 2nd ed and 3rd ed)
• They share their meals but not their sexual partners. (Ehrman)

You can see how Holmes is influenced by Lightfoot, but that's OK because Holmes is a revision of Lightfoot. He's allowed to do that. Ehrman translates exactly the same, only giving "meals" and "sexual partners" instead of "food" and "wives". There seems to be a heritage here.

Lake is the one that mystifies me. Of course, the date is 1912, so Lake could be appealing to Victorian sensibilities, but he doesn't usually get that idiomatic in a translation. "Guard their purity"? The word is "bed" (κοίτην) and it is a reference to, at minimum, the marriage bed (cf. BDAG κοιτη 1b) and perhaps even "seminal emission" (cf. BDAG κοιτη 2b). Either way, the Greek is obvious as the balance of translations show. Lake makes it sound like the Christians are simply averting their eyes when they walk into the bath; if you didn't read the Greek you wouldn't know that it's really talking about adultery and fornication. But who knows. Maybe "guard their purity" was the completely obvious way to translate it for Lake's audience. But I doubt it; otherwise I'd guess Lightfoot would tend that direction as well.

I think Meecham does the best job as the word is in reference to the place of the act, not to the act itself (so Lake's "purity", I guess) or in reference to those involved in the act ("wives" Lightfoot and Holmes, "sexual partners" Ehrman). At least Ehrman's translation acknowledges it wasn't just females; it takes two to tango.

But while I like the second half of Meecham's translation, I don't like the first. It sounds like a bed & breakfast open for all. Free board? Really? Sounds like a great deal for college students! Somehow, I don't think that is what was happening either. Lightfoot seems better here too.

How would I translate it? I tend to try to stay literal and transparent at this point, even in word order where possible, largely so I can remember/guess at the Greek behind the translation, so I'd probably go for something like:

A common table they set, but not a [common] bed.

Whatever the case, and whatever the best translation, you really should read EpDiog 5 in any translation. When doing so, realize that these are the things that the author saw as distinguishing Christians from those around them.

The logical question for me at this point: How do Christians distinguish themselves from those around them these days? And is that distinguishing what it should be, or do we have more work to do in this area? I'd say we (yes, pointing fingers directly at myself here) have some work to do.

I'm reading through the Epistle to Diognetus in the Greek. Or, at least, I'm trying to. I'm in chapter 3, and was really scratching my head on the end of verse 5 in comparison with Lake's translation:

τῶν μὲν μὴ δυναμένοις τῆς τιμῆς μεταλαμβάνειν, τῶν δὲ δοκούντων παρέχειν τῷ· μηδενὸς προσδεομένῳ.
For it seems that the one offer to those who cannot partake of the honour, the others to him who is in need of nothing. (Lake)
the latter make offerings to things unable to receive the honor, while the former think they offer it to the One who is in need of nothing. (Holmes)
one group giving to gods who cannot receive the honor, the other thinking that it can provide something to the one who needs nothing. (Ehrman)
For the one class seem to offer sacrifices to things unable to partake of the honour, the other to Him who is in need of nothing. (Meecham, emphasis his)

Thankfully I've got Meecham's edition (from 1949, the last available critical edition in English) where he includes the note:

The text is corrupt. See Otto's full note. Stephanus reads τα μη δυναμενα. So Gildersleeve. Geffcken follows Wilamowitz' rdg. των μεν τοισ η δυναμενοις. For further emendations, see Blakeney (p. 42). We adopt the text printed by Funk, Lightfoot, and Lake, following Gebhardt. For the grammatical construction of the sentence see p. 13. (Meecham, 103).

Here's p. 13:

In general, the author's syntax is correct and careful. Some laxity, however, is seen in iii.5, where the sentence των μεν κτλ. is isolated, being either an irregular genit. abs. or a clause loosely attached to the preceding genit. των ... ενδεικνυμενων.

So that helps, somewhat. Recorded here so I don't have to look it up in Meecham again.

Any ideas as to what this might be?

Hint: It has to do with my BibleTech:2009 paper. (If you're using a feed reader like Bloglines, you'll need to see the post on ricoblog for the details)

Any ideas?

Ok, I'll give. The above is a representation of parts of speech in the first five books of the LXX (so, the pentateuch). Yes, lots of refining to do, but you get the gist. The order is:

(particularly if you're in the Pacific Northwest / British Columbia region)

Because cool people are doing cool things. Mike Aubrey, a very smart and very motivated guy, is playing around with automated morphological tagging using some of SIL's existing tools. And he's giving a paper on it. (Go here for more info, then go here to register for BibleTech:2009)

If this sort of thing floats your boat, not only will you be able to hear the paper—you'll be able to sit down at a meal with Mike and talk with him more about it.

And that's what I like about BibleTech. Sure, there is learning new stuff from folks doing cool things. But there is also a sense of community where you can actually talk further (outside of a formal Q&A session) about stuff and get to know someone.

So consider attending, and please do register!

Sound interesting? Then you should come to BibleTech:2009, which is to be held in Seattle on March 27 and 28. Logos just pushed a press release with more info.

If you're in the Seattle area or the Northwest, then you should register for BibleTech:2009, come on down and hang out with us. Note that registration includes sessions and catered meals. The meals were one of the best parts of last year's conference. Too often at conferences there is too much hustle-and-bustle and not enough time actually interacting with the interesting and smart folks there. The meal times allow for that, and it's pretty cool.

Here's the text of the press release, for more information.

BELLINGHAM, WA–January 2, 2009–Scholars, publishers and technologists will be in attendance at the second-annual BibleTech conference in Seattle, WA on March 27 and 28.

BibleTech:2009 will feature more than twenty-five presentations from leading publishers, software developers, and web developers. Topics include data standards, the semantic web, mobile computing, ancient languages, and integrating technology into the Bible classroom.

“BibleTech is a place for everyone interested in the Bible and technology. There is no other conference where publishers, academics, ministry leaders, and technologists can find so much common ground,” said Bob Pritchett, President of Logos Bible Software.

BibleTech:2009 will feature two tracks. The first will address the technical aspects of programming, designing, and publishing software for Bible study and ministerial applications. The second track will focus on the application and implementation of Bible-based technologies including sermon preparation and advanced computer-based research strategies.

Featured presenters include: Mark Stephenson, Director of Web-Empowered Church; Lance Ford, Co-founder of Shapevine.com and WebChurchMedia; and Ellen Frankel, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of the Jewish Publication Society. A complete list of 2009 conference speakers is available at www.bibletechconference.com/speakers.htm.

More information is available at www.bibletechconference.com

What are you waiting for? Sign up, and come see us!

Just received an email from Review of Biblical Literature (RBL), among other things it mentions the joyous news:

RBL now has its own blog, where the reviews published each month will be listed for easy reference: http://rblnewsletter.blogspot.com/. Following the pattern of Bryn Mawr Classical Review (http://www.bmcreview.org/), each book reviewed will be listed in a separate blog entry. Note also that the comments function is currently enabled. We invite authors, reviewers, and RBL readers to comment on reviews, understanding that we will adhere strictly to the following guidelines: (a) all comments will be moderated by the RBL managing editor; (b) anonymous comments will not be allowed; anyone submitting a comment must provide his or her full name; (c) only comments that advance discussion of a book or review will be posted; (d) comments that contain personal or ad hominem attacks of any kind, that disparage any individual or group, or that do not relate directly to the book or its review will be declined. We trust that the RBL blog will enable readers to engage in positive interaction concerning the books we review or the reviews we publish. However, the comments function may be disabled at any time, should experience teach us that it is not achieving its purpose.

Very cool; and the comment feature sounds great. Make sure to subscribe and get reviews piped down your feed reader!