Here’s an interesting question (or maybe not): “Μετὰ ταῦτα”, “Μετὰ τοῦτο” and “Μετὰ ταῦτον” are all used in the NT to introduce another sequence in narrative.
“Μετὰ ταῦτα” is by far the most frequent, used in the Gospel of John and Revelation most frequently and in Acts 3 times.
“Μετὰ τοῦτο” is only used 5 times in the NT. John 2:12; 11:7; 11:11; 19:28 and Rev 7:1 (this is peculiar to John)
“Μετὰ ταῦτον” is only used one in Acts 5:37
All three appear to be used in much the same way as each other, so what would be the reason for using one form of τοῦτο over the other in this phrase? I checked for variant readings in Acts 5:37 and there is nothing to suggest that the lone “Μετὰ ταῦτον” isn’t original. Is it purely stylistic between authors, or is there a nuance I’m missing?
Doesn’t Acts 5:37 read μετὰ τοῦτον, “after this man”, i.e., after Theudas, mentioned in the preceding verse? I realize you prefer a different text, but I’ve never encountered the form ταῦτον–this may be my ignorance of NT Greek, however.
Smyth 328 N mentions the form ταὐτόν, which is an alternative form of crasis for τὸ αὐτό, “the same” (neut.), but ταῦτον seems very strange.
Doesn’t Acts 5:37 read μετὰ τοῦτον, “after this man”, i.e., after Theudas, mentioned in the preceding verse? I realize you prefer a different text, but I’ve never encountered the form ταῦτον–this may be my ignorance of NT Greek, however.
Somehow I missed that How embarassing!
So what about Μετὰ ταῦτα and Μετὰ τοῦτο. Thoughts?
Personally, I wouldn’t give much thought to this. It depends on whether the author was viewing what preceded as a single event or a number of events. But I’m not familiar with the discourse analysis literature on NT Greek. Stirling might have some insight into this.
Not much insight. I looked at Levinsohn (2000:82-92) where he discusses asyndeton and points of departure in Johannine narrative. He doesn’t highlight any distinction between the singular and plural form and refers to them as Μετὰ τοῦτο/ταῦτα. If I were pressed to explain the difference I might “wing it” by saying that the singular is slightly more anaphoric in flavor and the plural rather vague. But that is a stretch.
I can understand the sentiment, in my own reading, it appears that there is little difference in meaning between the two. However, As hair splitting as it is, it may be there’s a reason why John would depart from the standard “Μετὰ ταῦτα” and use “Μετὰ τοῦτο” (Which only occurs in John’s writings). within Johns writings, Μετὰ τοῦτο seems to be “marked” (in Runge’s terminology) since typically, the plural form is used more often.
if there is no semantic meaning, perhaps there are other influences on John that are not on the other Gospel writers:
Could there be a semetic influence on John that is not on the others?
Maybe its a regional phrase used in Galilee?
I want to continue this discussion. You have piqued my interest. But let me try something first.
Two maintenance guys are doing safety inspections in an apartment complex. One guys says to the other, “Man, these inspections are taking longer than I thought.” The other guy says, “Yeah, I know. And what do we have to do after this?” Now the guy could have said “And what do we have to do after these things?” Grammatically, that would even have been more correct, since the safety inspections are plural. But would you agree that in English, for some reason, “after this” sounds right here, while “after these things” does not? Would you agree that in 2014 America, while you hear both “after these things” and “after this,” the latter is more common, and there are odd instances where you use the one and not the other, but that you cannot really formulate rules that will predict or explain the usage. Even more strangely, for some reason you can say “After these things that have been happening in the Middle East, I am getting really upset,” but you can’t say “After this that has been has been happening in the Middle East, I am getting really upset.” I mean, you can say this, but doesn’t it sound a little odd? Why does it sound odd?
If you wrote a book in English discussing the 2014 differences in meaning between “after this” and “after these things” it would be a very long book, and only someone who was fluent in English would get much out of it, and WOULD BE IN A POSTION TO JUDGE ITS ACCURACY. It would BEGIN with the basic fact that “after this” is FORMALLY singular and “after these things” is FORMALLY plural, but it would acknowledge that this in no way can explain all the usage. I think this much applies to Μετὰ ταῦτα/Μετὰ τοῦτο as well. Our study would include the fact that “after these things” is slightly more formal on the one hand and is less common on the other hand; there is even a sense in which “after these things” is falling out of the language. Maybe you can say something similar in regard to Μετὰ ταῦτα/Μετὰ τοῦτο as well, but at this point it starts getting harder. In English, regional differences and interference from other languages (if nothing else, from British English) often come into play. How much more so with Koine.
I think you’re exaggerating the difficulties here. μετὰ ταῦτα is used when, in some way or the other, the narrator refers to several preceding events and μετὰ τοῦτο when he or she refers to one. I think that’s really all there is to it. Probably there’s some overlap between the two, I don’t know, because probably in many instances it really depends on how the narrator sees it. And perhaps in some contexts you would translate μετὰ ταῦτα “after all this”. I think Markos is way too fluent in Greek not to note the difference at least unconsciously, although he feigns ignorance. Actually, I think it’s typical that when you’re fluent, you don’t actually know exactly why things are as they are, you just know how it is.
As for “After this that has been has been happening in the Middle East”, the problem is that you can’t say “this that” in English, so you have to change it to “these things that”.
Hi, Paul. I recognize that, as Bill already pointed out, this is the FORMAL difference between the two, but in reading Greek I have noticed that formal differences are not always maintained in actual usage. In John 2:12 μετὰ τοῦτο is used after reference to the miracle at Cana, possibly even picking on the ταύτην in the ταύτην ἐποίησεν ἀρχὴν τῶν σημείων ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐν Κανὰ τῆς Γαλιλαίας in verse 11. On the other hand, μετὰ ταῦτα is used in John 3:22 after the discussion with Nicodemus. I am prepared to accept that the sign of the miracle is seen as more singular than the extended discourse with Nicodemus about Jesus.
But what about John 11:11? ταῦτα εἶπεν, καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο λέγει αὐτοῖς… This follows more theological discourse. Are we to believe that the theology in chapter 3 is somehow more plural than the theology of chapter 11? Also, I don’t see how one versus several events comes into play in the difference between John 19:28 and 19:38. And what singular event precedes Rev 7:1?
Now, it is quite possible that in general the distinction holds, but that there are exceptions. The sample size in the NT seems too small. I am not denying (at this point) that this could be the semantic distinction, but I remain skeptical. The NET note to John 3:22 says “This section is related loosely to the preceding section by μετὰ ταῦτα, an indefinite temporal reference.” Does this mean that μετὰ τοῦτο is less definite? I don’t know. Is one more emphatic than the other? I don’t know, and that is my only point, that we don’t know.
About half of the English versions make no distinction, rendering both phrases with “after this.” (Again, this could be because “after these things” has become a bit stilted in contemporary English.) The Hebrew versions typically make the distinction as אחרי כן versus אחרי הדברים האלה.
Yes, I agree with you on this, and it proves my point. That you can’t usually say “this that” in 2014 English is an oddity of the language that can only be picked up by fluent speakers. There may be some similar non-semantic (euphonic?) oddity that determines the use here, something that we can never know about, given that we don’t have enough of the language to go by. (Reading all the papyri might help.) That does not NECESSARILY mean we should not try.
Idiomatic English (West Coast USA) “After what has been happening in the Middle East”
The Roehampton Circle (Phd candidates under S. E. Porter late 1990s), I suspect they were following M. A. K. Halliday, used to suggest that surface structure variations like singular/plural are motivated by choices about how to present the narrative/discourse. I am not sure exactly what this means but the way I read it is: every alternative e.g. aorist/perfect/present or singular/plural represents a choice about how to present the idea in the language used. This doesn’t imply that authors deliberated in their mind about the choice, just that the option to use another form is present if they want to use it.
Applying this to the situation at hand, the singular seems to reflect a more definite antecedent action/event than the plural. When the singular is used in Jn 2:12 if follows a scene which begins with a temporal setting Jn 2:1 Καὶ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ … 2:12 Μετὰ τοῦτο κατέβη εἰς Καφαρναοὺμ.
ταῦτα refers to what has been said, plural because the utterance contains several points (more or less…). On the other hand, I think τοῦτο in μετὰ τοῦτο refers just to ταῦτα εἶπεν, not to the content of the preceding speech in its several points, but the just act of speaking (εἶπεν) as a whole.
I think usually μετὰ ταῦτα and μετὰ τοῦτο are to be translated just the same: “after this”. You can’t make the distinction in English most of the time. Sometimes you can try with “after these things”, but most of the time you will be wrong. I think we’re actually being misled here, because the reason why you can’t say “this that” in English is a problem of another sort, though I can’t say exactly what is.
This may well be the case (it sort of works for John 19:28 versus 38,) but (1) I’d like to see it tested on a larger sample size. I’m actually surprised to find out that μετὰ ταῦτα/μετὰ τοῦτο is as rare in the GNT as it is. I think they must be common in secular Greek, maybe even in Homer? (they seem really common to me.) (2) what you are saying about the distinction is different from what Paul and Bill (initially) said.
Today’s Greek Version makes the distinction ύστερα versus ύστερα απ’ αυτά.
It sounds, Paul, like you are becoming a semantic minimalist.
I just remembered, of course, where I have seen these so often. The Anabasis has very often not only μετὰ ταῦτα, but also μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα and μετὰ τοῦτον as transitions, both within and between narrative segments. I’d be curious to see if there is a pattern and if it matches the ones that have been proposed.
Look in Thucydides for μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα, μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο, μετὰ τοῦτο, μετὰ ταῦτα. Keeping in mind that not all the samples will be narrative temporal points of departure.
I think this is true (that the singular reflects a more definite antecedent), but I don’t think there’s really a contradiction.
The Anabasis seems to be full of examples. I quote here bits I found. They’re very long, sorry, but you can’t interpret these without the context. I think μετὰ ταῦτα here always refers more vaguely to what precedes, while μετὰ τοῦτο refers to the one event that precedes.
At 7.3.15 τοῦτο refers to Σεύθῃ εἶπεν, while ταῦτα would have referred to the whole assembly – you could translate “when he had spoken”, while μετὰ ταῦτα would be “after the assembly”. I think in this context, μετὰ τοῦτο makes the following event more immediate than μετὰ ταῦτα would – it’s almost like “Immediately after he had spoken”.
At 6.1., we are told about a party. There are number of performances that follow one another in succession. μετὰ τοῦτο is used, as is expresses the transition from one show to the next.
I think the question of “a more definite antecedent” is more or less ignored by discourse grammars. They tend to focus on markers of discourse features which give structure to the narrative. So μετὰ ταῦτα would be discussed along with other temporal points of departure.
While it should be understood that Thucydides tells us little or nothing about Johannine use of μετὰ ταῦτα, I looked at some samples from Thucydides. In Thucydides temporal points of departure are ubiquitous. μετὰ ταῦτα in various forms appears over a 100 times but that is small percentage of temporal points of departure. The bare μετὰ ταῦτα is temporally vague and Thucydides adds qualifiers:
Book 1, chapter 56, section 1, line 1
Μετὰ ταῦτα δ’ εὐθὺς καὶ τάδε ξυνέβη γενέσθαι τοῖς
Ἀθηναίοις καὶ Πελοποννησίοις διάφορα ἐς τὸ πολεμεῖν.
The discourse function of καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα appears to be distinct from μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα or Μετὰ ταῦτα δὲ in that μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα appears mostly at the beginning of sections[1] which mark significant temporal breaks in narrative. Where as καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα appears to mark temporal movement within a discourse unit. The evidence is ambiguous at best.
In the retreat, the allies retreating after the Athenians were attacked by the Syracusans from the fort, and a large part of their army routed with great slaughter. 3.103.3 After this, Laches and the Athenians from the ships made some descents in Locris, and defeating the Locrians, who came against them with Proxenus, son of Capaton, upon the river Cacinus, took some arms and departed.
Meanwhile, the Mitylenian and other Lesbian exiles set out, for the most part from the continent, with mercenaries hired in Peloponnese, and others levied on the spot, and took Rhoeteum, but restored it without injury on the receipt of two thousand Phocaean staters. 4.52.3 After this they marched against Antandrus and took the town by treachery, their plan being to free Antandrus and the rest of the Actaean towns, formerly owned by Mitylene but now held by the Athenians.
Attacking in this way in considerable disorder, the Syracusans were defeated in battle at Epipolae and retired to the town, with a loss of about three hundred killed, and Diomilus among the number. 6.97.5 After this the Athenians set up a trophy and restored to the Syracusans their dead under truce, and next day descended to Syracuse itself; and no one coming out to meet them
While they were resting Gylippus and the Syracusans sent a part of their army to throw up works in their rear on the way by which they had advanced; however, the Athenians immediately sent some of their men and prevented them; 7.79.5 after which they retreated more towards the plain and halted for the night.
After this he embraced the first opportunity that offered of again leading them against the enemy. Now Nicias and the Athenians were of opinion that even if the Syracusans should not wish to offer battle, it was necessary for them to prevent the building of the cross wall, as it already almost overlapped the extreme point of their own, and if it went any further it would from that moment make no difference whether they fought ever so many successful actions, or never fought at all.
This was the treaty. After this Tissaphernes prepared to bring up the Phoenician fleet according to agreement, and to make good his other promises, or at all events wished to make it appear that he was so preparing.
and after speeches from Chalcideus and Alcibiades stating that many more ships were sailing up, but saying nothing of the fleet being blockaded in Spiraeum, the Chians revolted from the Athenians, and the Erythraeans immediately afterwards. 8.14.3 After this three vessels sailed over to Clazomenae, and made that city revolt also; and the Clazomenians immediately crossed over to the mainland and began to fortify Polichna, in order to retreat there, in case of necessity, from the island where they dwelt.
translation, Perseus @ UChicago
[1] sections are the work of editors so they need to be taken with a grain of salt.
8.23.5 As, however, everything went against him in Lesbos, he took up his own force and sailed back to Chios; the land forces on board, which were to have gone to the Hellespont, being also conveyed back to their different cities. After this six of the allied Peloponnesian ships at Cenchreae joined the forces at Chios. 8.23.6 The Athenians, after restoring matters to their old state in Lesbos, set sail from thence and took Polichna, the place that the Clazomenians were fortifying on the continent, and carried the inhabitants back to their town upon the island, except the authors of the revolt, who withdrew to Daphnus; and thus Clazomenae became once more Athenian.
It seems that here μετὰ ταῦτα is probably not a point of departure but simply an adverbial with ἀφικνοῦνται. However the English translation appears to reorder the clause and put the adverb up front. On the other hand, is it possible that the referent of ταῦτα in μετὰ ταῦτα is one of the groups of warriors? Or perhaps we have hyperbaton καὶ … μετὰ ταῦτα.
Keep in mind I am not by any means a Thudydides aficionado.
The LXX renders the former with καὶ ἐγένετο μετὰ τὰ ῥήματα ταῦτα ὁ θεὸς…and the latter with ἐγένετο δὲ μετὰ τὰ ῥήματα ταῦτα καὶ ἀνηγγέλη τῷ Ἀβρααμ… I for one cannot find a pattern here.
When Johannine hearers heard μετὰ ταῦτα, did they hear an echo of Thucydides/Xenophon or of the LXX, or neither or both? That’s another thing we can’t know.
It’s a question I struggle with. How many counter examples does there have to be before these putative patterns become suspect?
So it seems there is no one size fits all, and like a lot of grammatical ideas, there are lots of “exceptions” to the rule. It seems that analysis of other writings doesn’t really answer the question of any difference between Μετὰ ταῦτα and Μετὰ τοῦτο.
Are there any examples of when one would expect to find the singular but find the plural, or vice versa? as I’ve said before, Μετὰ ταῦτα, is what is mostly used in the NT, with only about 5 instances of Μετὰ τοῦτο.
Textually, they all have the variant Μετὰ ταῦτα in some manuscripts, however they are negligible in all cases and the reading is very likely Μετὰ τοῦτο. On an interesting side note, Μετὰ τοῦτα [sic] is a variant in Rev 7:1. Almost as though the scribe copying it was thinking ταῦτα, but conflicting with what would be the odd form τοῦτο (at least to the scribe anyway). Presumably because ταῦτα was the more “normal” usage to introduce a new topic. Maybe ταῦτα was THE normal way in Byzantine Greek? I’m sure this would result in some “cross talk” between the mind of the copying scribe and writing of the manuscript before him.
Its still, in my mind, an odd thing that only John would use it in the NT. I’m beginning to think that there really is no discernible difference between the two in koine. I wonder if John thought of them as synonyms.
I would be more interested in what the author heard not what his audience heard. I would assume that John had not seen a copy of Homer, Sophocles, Thucydides, Plato, Xenophon … whatever. But to just study patterns in NT/LXX is closed feedback loop. NT is full of LXX like language. We need to compare it to some standard. Some would prefer a Koine standard to a “Classical” one. Attic narrative seems like a good place to start.
Didn’t find Μετὰ ταῦτα in Homer or Attic Tragedy (once in fragment of Aeschylus). Lots of examples in Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon.
How embarassing!
Actually, I think it’s typical that when you’re fluent, you don’t actually know exactly why things are as they are, you just know how it is.