Mark 9:20 - corruption version grammarian makes same type of error as in heavenly witnesses

Steven Avery

Administrator
This is from CARM, with lots of good Mark 9:20 grammar referencing.
https://forums.carm.org/vb5/forum/t...derstand-biblical-koine?p=5823881#post5823881

And I plan to add the comments from Barry Hofstetter, who makes the same type of error here as he does on the heavenly witnesses verses.
Also the material from the Textkit forum can get a direct link or two.

Jameson;n5818305 said:
I've never heard anyone use the expression "parse the grammar,".
"Grammar parsing" is used a lot, "parse the grammar" a fair amount. John may have picked it up from my usage, in discussing his John 1:10 error.

Jameson;n5818305 said:
nor do I think that a circumstantial participle is "modifying" a word.
Agreed. Very strange.

Jameson;n5818305 said:
I read ἰδών as referring to the boy .
Earlier I showed that a number of solid grammarians agree on this point. Barry does not seem to be familiar with those writers, and also has a low view of the 1800s grammarians.

Steven Avery;n5810922 said:
Here it looks like Alexander Buttmann is countering the idea of any constructio ad sensum, simply based on proper grammar parsing.

A Grammar of the New Testament Greek (1891)
By Alexander Buttmann
https://books.google.com/books?id=oA9CAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA130

CONSTBUCTIO AD SYNESIN IN THE PREDICATE.
... b) The predicate follows the natural gender of the subject. Of this the examples are most numerous in the Apocalypse, in accordance with the style of the author (see § 123, 7 p. 80). ... fj-ivuL. (But ... in Mark ix. 20 ἰδὼν does not refer to τὸ πνεῦμα see § 144, 18 c) p. 299.)

Steven Avery;n5813801 said:
And I showed you that Buttmann specifically contests your claim here, saying that the spirit is not the one that saw Jesus.

Mark 9:17 (AV)
And one of the multitude answered and said, Master,
I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit;

Mark 9:20 (AV)
And they brought him unto him:
and when he saw him,
straightway the spirit tare him;
and he fell on the ground,

....
Alexander Buttmann says it was the boy (who received deliverance by the Lord Jesus) who saw Jesus, not the spirit, which makes perfect sense.
Steven Avery;n5814000 said:
We were benefited by the Textkit discussion that was initiated by S. Walch. They mentioned Winer and Blass ,
as Winer (WM., p. 710) and Blass (Gr. p. 283) ...
(the reference is from Swete, who supported the CAS idea, and "not an ancoluthon".)

as contra the contructio ad sensum idea of the pneuma being used with masculine grammar.. To that we can add Alexander Buttmann, p.130 and p.384, and Moses Stuart.
Here is Moses Stuart:

A Grammar of the New Testament Dialect (1834)
By Moses Stuart
https://books.google.com/books?id=9x2fEDwCViUC&pg=PA249

(1) By anacoluthon ... is meant, a sentence which,, being interrupted by some inserted circumstance, is resumed not with a regularly continued construction, but with one differing from that with which it was begun. .... E.g. Mark 9:20...
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
five who got it right

A modern handbook by Bratcher and Nida points out that:

Johann Albrecht Bengel, (1687-1752)

Marie-Joseph Lagrange, (1855-1938)

Helen Barrett Montgomery (1869-1948)

Version Synodale (7* edition entierement revisee). Paris, 1952.

Brazilian: O Novo Testamento de Nosso Senhor Jesus Cristo. Revisdo Autorizada. Rio de Janeiro, 1955.
All favor the boy seeing Jesus.

And why do the moderns favor the constructio ad sensum idea?

Simply because of the Mark 9:26 textual corruption.
Error begets error.

A Translator's Handbook on the Gospel of Mark (1961)
By Robert G. Bratcher, Eugene Albert Nida
https://books.google.com/books?id=ZcUUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA285

And this is how Barry Hofstetter was duped.

Textual corruption creates translation and interpretation errors, and faux Greek grammar.

Even if you support the modern Critical Text, you should be able to understand how the new text, with the loosey-goosey readings, has changed the Greek grammar perspective.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
the errors of Swete and Robertson and Hofstetter

CARM
https://forums.carm.org/vb5/forum/t...derstand-biblical-koine?p=5831666#post5831666

Barry Hofstetter;n5821754 said:
One of my favorite late 19th-early 20th century NT scholars, Henry Barclay Swete ... has this to say:
https://archive.org/details/thegospe...tuoft/page/198
However, you did not give the whole section in your post:

Ἰδὼν αὐτὸν τὸ πνεῦμα—not, as Winer (WM., p. 710) and Blass (Gr. p. 283), an anacoluthon (ἰδὼν αὐτὸν [ὁ παῖς], τὸ πν. κτλ., cf. Syr.sin.), but a constructio ad sensum—the gender of the noun is overlooked in view of the personal action of the spirit; cf. Jo. 16:13 f. ἐκεῖνος τὸ πνεῦμα ... ἐκεῖνος, where if the masc. pronoun is suggested by ὁ παράκλητος (v. 7), its repetition would be impossible but for the personal life implied in τὸ πνεῦμα.

Notice that Henry Barclay Swete (1835-1917) makes an analogy error with John 16:13 to support his constructio ad sensum claim in Mark 9:20. An indication of the weakness of the position. (The other common analogy is the ultra-minority corruption variant in Mark 9:26.)

And Swete is properly included in the Naselli and Gons paper as one of the grammatical stumblers on this πνεῦμα with a masculine pronoun question.

Barry Hofstetter;n5821754 said:
I will also note that nobody mentions anything about any "natural" gender of spirit-beings.
One nobody who does exactly that is A. T. Robertson:

A grammar of the Greek New Testament in the light of historical research (1919)
Archibald.Thomas Robertson (1863–-1934)
https://books.google.com/books?id=sRojAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA436

... surely this is merely treating πνεῦμα.as masculine (natural gender).
Robertson also makes the πνεῦμα.with a masculine pronoun error in his discussion on p. 708-709 in discussing Gender and Number, as pointed out in the Naselli and Gons paper, and the Robertson section online in the book is at https://books.google.com/books?id=sRojAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA708 .
 
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