Showing posts with label Mark 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mark 2. Show all posts

Sunday, November 28, 2021

Matthew 9:12, Mark 2:17

Near the beginning of the month, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 21 September:


This was the Feast Day of St. Matthew, and the reading was Matthew 9:9-13.  Not too long before this, I'd read the parallel account in Mark 2:13-17.  I felt that something was off about the structure of "'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick'" (in verse 17), but it wasn't until hearing the same construction in Matthew (in verse 12) that I had some insight into it.

What had puzzled me is that there are some implied words in the second clause:  "Those who are sick [have need of a physician]."  I'd understood the meaning, of course; I simply hadn't understood what was going on in the grammar.

Consequently, I realized that such an ellipsis is significant.  In the same way that the phrase "those who are sick" requires the implied words in order to form a complete clause, the sick people need the treatment of a doctor in order to become healthy.

Sunday, January 26, 2020

Mark 2:3

Although still behind, I'm continuing along in the Daily Dose of Greek series on Mark.  Recently, I watched the video for Mark 2:3:


I think it's significant that αἰρόμενον is a passive participle.  Because it's not a finite verb, the sense of action isn't as strong (it's more incidental than a focus), and because it's passive there's obviously the meaning of the paralytic's being acted upon rather than his acting himself.  Both of these grammatical features illustrate his paralysis.