Re: THEORY: Relation between counting, trial, and plural

R A Brown wrote:
[snip]
> No - the Greek has the plural: kairòn kaì kairoùs [acc. pl.] kaì
> héemisou kairoû
Ooops!! The penultimate word should be _héemisu_ or, even better, as
Philip wrote it:
---------
Philip Newton wrote:
[snip]
 > No -- in fact, I don't think the dual is used anywhere in the NT (nor,
 > for that matter, when it more-or-less died out, but it was quite a
 > while ago TTBOMK).

Yep - it was moribund even in ancient Greek, being confined almost
entirely to things that come in pairs like eyes & ears. But even with
eyes, ears etc. the plural was more common than the dual. By the
Hellenistic period it was as dead as the proverbial dodo.

 > The text I have reads καιρόν και καιρούς και ήμισυ
 > καιρού, with plain plural.

Yep - that's it and, as I have pointed out, it is a reference to Daniel
7:25 which reads: καιροὺ καὶ καιρῶν καί γε ἥμισυ καιρού

 > (And, interestingly for me, "half of a
 > time" at the end, i.e. noun + noun.gen, rather than Modern Greek "a
 > half time" with adj + noun.)

Strictly it's the neuter of the adjective (ἥμισυς, ἥμισεια, ἥμισυ -
héemisus, héemiseia, héemisu) used substantivally with the genitive of
the following noun. This construction is found as early as the Epic
Greek of Homer. But it was also always possible to use the adjective as
and adjective, i.e. ἥμισεος καιρού would have equally acceptable in
Hellenistic Greek. As the phrase is based on the Daniel passage, it may
be that the noun+gen. construction echoed the original Hebrew. Does
anyone know?


Interestingly, καιρός (kairos) was never used to mean "year". It meant
'due measure [of time], [critical] time, opportunity, season, period'.
If the Daniel phrase refers to the approximately 42 months of
persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes, _kairos_ could equally well refer
to a season or four-month period, i.e. time (4 months) + times (9*4
months = 36 months) + half a time (4/2 months = 2 months) = 4+36+2 = 42.

I daresay there are other possibilities also. As I said in my previous
email, the phrase is code for "Antiochus Epiphanes' period of
persecution" - it certainly cannot be used to prove (or disprove) any
supposed Greek conflation of dual & plural.

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
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Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB]

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