Thursday, August 29, 2024

F. F. Bruce on Acts 20:28

  

Gk. δια του αιματος του ιδιου should be translated here “by means of blood of HIs own one”; this sense of ιδιος is well attested in the papyri where it is “used thus as a term of endearment to near relations, e.g. ο δεινα τω ιδιω χαιρειν [‘So-and-so to his own (friend), greeting’]” (J. H. Moulton, Grammar of NT Greek I [Edinburgh, 1906], p. 90). As used here, it is the equivalent of Heb. yachid (“only”), elsewhere represented by Gk. αγαπητος (“beloved”), εκλεκτος (“choice”) and μονογενης (“only begotten”). In view of this, it is unnecessary to suppose, as HOT did, that υιου (“son”) may have dropped out of the text after ιδιου. (F. F. Bruce, The Book of Acts [The New International Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1954], 416 ν. 59)

 

In In Moulton and Milligan's Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament, we read the following under ιδιου (emphasis added):

 

For an “exhausted” ἴδιος in Hellenistic Greek, equivalent to little more than the possessive pronoun, Kuhring (p. 13) cites such passages as BGU IV. 1061 21 (B.C. 14) ἐν τῶι ἰδίωι αὐτοῦ κλήρωι, P Oxy III. 48325 (A.D. 108) ]μνύω . . εἶναι τὰς προκ@ειμ]ένας ἀρούρας εἰδίας μου, ib. 49433 (A.D. 156) ἐγνώρισα τὴν ἰδίαν μου σφραγῖδα, ib. 49515 (A.D. 181–9) γράψω τῇ ἰδιᾳ μου χειρί, BGU III.8652 (ii/A.D.) ἀκολούθω@ς τῇ ἰδ]ίᾳ σοι (l. σου) ἐπιστολῇ, ib. I. 1315 (A.D. 289) ἐκδικήσωμεν . . τοῖς ἰδίοις ἑαυτῶν δαπανήμασιν, P Grenf II. 8o14 (A.D. 402) ὑπὲρ ἰδιας σου κεφαλῆς. It will hardly be denied, however, that in all these passages ἴδιος adds a certain emphasis, and this undoubtedly holds good of the general NT usage, as e.g. Jn 141, 1 Cor 38, Gal 65: Heb 727, etc.: see more particularly Proleg. p. 87 ff. (as against Deissmann BS p. 123 f.), and cf. Souter (Lex. s.v.) where the word is rendered “one’s own,” “belonging to one,” “private,” “personal,” without any mention of a weaker meaning. WinerSchrniedel Gr, § 22, 17, on the other hand, claims for the word both senses in the NT, and illustrates these in detail. It is probably impossible to draw the line strictly, so much depends on the special nuance of the context. Thus in the interesting papyrus in which proceedings are instituted for the recovery of a foundling child that had been put out to nurse, the defendant asserts that the foundling had died, and that the child now claimed was her own child—τὸ] @δι]όν μου τέκνον (P Oxy I. 37ii.1—A.D.49) (= Selections, p. 51). But when in P Goodsp Cairo 48 (ii/B.C.) (= Selections, p. 25) Polycrartes writes to a friend introducing one Glaucias—a.πεsτάlκαμεν πρὸς σὲ Γλαυκίαν, ὄντα ἡμῶν ἴδιον, κοινολογησόμενόν σοι, the meaning can be little more than “who is one of ourselves”: cf. P Par 4111 (B.C. 158) οὗ <ἐν> κατοχῇ ἰμὶ μετὰ τοῦ πρεσβυτέρου ἀδελφοῦ ἰδίου (= ἐμοῦ) Πτολεμαίου, P Tor I, 827 (B.C.119) εἰς τὰς ἰδίας αὐτῶν (= εἰς τὰς ἑαυτῶν) μετοικισθῆναι (both cited by Mayser Gr. p. 308). This last ex. illustrates the absolute use of ἴδιος as in Jn 111,131, etc.: cf. also P Oxy XIV. 16805 (iii/iv A.D.), where a son prays for his father—ὑγιαίνοντί (l. —τά) σε ἀπολαβεῖν ἐν τοῖς ἰδίοις “that we may receive you home in good health” (Edd.). On the principle of the ἰδία, involving a man’s personal attachment to the house and soil of his birth, see Zulueta in Vinogradoff s Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History i. (1909), p. 42 ff., and cf. Exp VIII. iv. p. 487 ff., where Ramsay applies this principle in connexion with Lk 23. In Proleg. p. 90 f. special attention is drawn to the use of ἴδιος in addressing near relations at the beginning of a letter. Thus in P Fay 1102 (A.D. 94) Gemellus sends greeting Ἐπαγαθῶι τῶι ἰδίωι, Epagathus being probably a nephew, and similarly in other letters of the same correspondence: when the son Sabinus is addressed, the words τῷ οιεἱῶι (= τῷ υἱῷ) are always used, as ib. 1132 (A.D.100). If this were at all a normal use of ἴδιος it might add something to the case for translating Ac 2028 τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ ἰδίου, “the blood of one who was His own” (Weiss, etc.).

 

 

 

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