help with sentence from Croy, Lesson 5

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akhnaten
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help with sentence from Croy, Lesson 5

Post by akhnaten »

Question is from Croy's A Primer of Biblical Greek, Lesson V, Septuagint Sentences, No. 5:

(Gabael blesses Tobias) Καλὲ καὶ ἀγαθέ, ἀνδρὸς καλοῦ καὶ ἀγαθοῦ, δικαίου καὶ ἐλεημοποιοῦ, δῷη σοι κύριος εὐλογίαν οὐρανοῦ. [Tobit 9:6 codex S]

the following are glosses given for unknown words:
ἀνδρὸς - "of a man"
ἐλεημοποιοῦ - "giving alms"
δῷη - "may he give"
εὐλογίαν - "a blessing"

I believe "Καλὲ" and "ἀγαθέ" are substantive adjectives in the vocative. while the four adjectives following "ἀνδρὸς" are genitives modifying Tobias. I feel my translation is very clumsy-:

"The good and the noble, of a good and noble man, righteous and giving of alms, may the Lord give to you a blessing from heaven."
Main problems (I hope!):
-if the first two adjectives are in the voc. acting as substantive adj., what is a good way to translate them?
-I am pretty sure the "of heaven" refers to the act of giving a blessing, but how do I know it is not referring to "κύριος"?

Thanks for any help!!!

Patruus
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Re: help with sentence from Croy, Lesson 5

Post by Patruus »

The NRSV has "Good and noble son of a father good and noble, upright and generous! May the Lord grant the blessing of heaven to you and ..."

http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=270445559

Qimmik
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Re: help with sentence from Croy, Lesson 5

Post by Qimmik »

"Good and noble [man], [son] of a good and noble, just and charitable [father], may the Lord give you the blessing of heaven."

In Greek, the genitive alone, without υἱός, typically indicates paternity.

Καλὲ καὶ ἀγαθέ -- in classical Greek, these two adjectives together, frequently written Καλὲ κἀγαθέ with crasis, simply mean something like "gentleman," a man of upper-class or aristocratic family, and therefore naturally both handsome and good, qualities that were presumed to inherently characterize upper-class, wealthy men. The sense of good looks and moral probity has been watered down in this expression to a stock honorific. You might translate the vocatives here as "Noble sir", or "Distinguished sir" or maybe even just "Sir", and the genitives as "son of a noble man" (not "nobleman") or perhaps "son of a just and charitable gentleman."
the "of heaven" refers to the act of giving a blessing, but how do I know it is not referring to "κύριος"?
οὐρανοῦ is adjacent to εὐλογίαν, not κύριος. Although Greek word order is very flexible, here the word order makes it unlikely that οὐρανοῦ is dependent on κύριος.

akhnaten
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Re: help with sentence from Croy, Lesson 5

Post by akhnaten »

thank you. i am now a few more chapters ahead in croy and mastronarde, and i think the use of the genitive for paternity has been brought up at this point. even with that, i had returned to this sentence and still could not figure it out. the gloss that this was a blessing, and the definition 'of a man' made me think these were qualities being applied to Tobias, and the gen. reflected Tobias possessing the qualities. this is also the only "real" greek i'm reading (Mastronarde is still using sample sentences), and i think the first sentence of real greek i'd seen with a vocative form. all contributed to a little confusion.

i also appreciate the notes in ref. to classical greek and with the example of its crasis, even though this is on koine forum. very helpful for me.

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