In my post, Pop Catholic Apologists and the Greek Language, I discuss some blunders John Salza made with the language. In an article I recently encountered, The Grave of the Wicked Witch is Sealed Forever by Robert Sungenis and Jacob Michael, there are a couple of major blunders about the Greek texts they appeal to. As I am well-read in the works of Sungenis (e.g., Not By Bread Alone [on the Mass]), and know that he is familiar with the Greek language, I will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that the mistakes with Greek are due to over-enthusiasm and/or from Jacob Michael.
The article tries to answer the arguments of Eric Svendsen and the meaning of εως ου “until” in Matt 1:25. In the article, we read:
In fact, this is the same way heos hou continues the action of a number of instances in the LXX. For example, in Genesis 8:5 it states:
The water decreased steadily UNTIL [heos hou] the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible.
Obviously, heos hou does not intend to cease the action of the main clause (“the water decreased steadily”), rather it allows that the water continued to decrease even after the tenth month. Otherwise, the earth would still be flooded.
Another example is 2 Samuel 6:23:
Michal the daughter of Saul had no child UNTIL [heos hou] the day of her death.
Obviously, heos hou does not intend to say that Michal had children after her death, and thus we describe such cases as heos hou continuing the action of the main clause (“Michal...had no child”).
Wrong on both counts.
Gen 8:5 reads in the LXX as follows:
τὸ δὲ ὕδωρ πορευόμενον ἠλαττονοῦτο ἕως τοῦ δεκάτου μηνός ἐν δὲ τῷ ἑνδεκάτῳ μηνί τῇ πρώτῃ τοῦ μηνός ὤφθησαν αἱ κεφαλαὶ τῶν ὀρέων
Now the water, as it was proceeding, was diminishing until the tenth month; then in the eleventh month, on the first of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared. (NETS)
The verse does not use εως ου but only the bare term εως.
2 Sam 6:23 in the LXX reads:
καὶ τῇ Μελχολ θυγατρὶ Σαουλ οὐκ ἐγένετο παιδίον ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας τοῦ ἀποθανεῖν αὐτήν
And to Melchol daughter of Saoul there was no child to the day of her death. (NETS)
Again, the LXX does not use εως ου but εως, contra Sungenis and Michael.
The moral of the story is that one should be cautious when someone else is flexing their muscles with the original languages of the Bible (and yes, I include fellow LDS in that, too). As the saying goes, “A little Greek is a dangerous thing.”
For more on issues relating to the perpetual virginity, see chapter 4, “The Perpetual Virginity of Mary” (pp. 83-138) of my book, Behold the Mother of My Lord: Towards a Mormon Mariology.
