Appointed/tetagmenoi in Acts 13:48

[awretch]

Hello,

My head is spinning from all the parts of this one. I'm using BibleHub and they parsed tetagmenoi as:

verb - perfect participle middle or passive - nominative masculine plural (https://biblehub.com/interlinear/acts/13-48.htm)

I'm stuck on a few places. I'm trying to identify the type of participle. Is it "causal"? The phrase does not have "because" or "since" as part of the translation. Is tetagmenoi describing "believed/episteusan"? But then I see nominative masculine plural and I'm thinking that it describes "gentiles". But if that's the case, wouldn't it be parsed as "substantive" instead? I'm getting really confused!

(I'm trying to follow this chart https://www.ntgreek.org/pdf/adverbial_participles.pdf and this page https://www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/participles.htm .)

Some other thoughts... since it is in perfect tense, then this would indicate a "continuation and present state of a completed past action" (https://www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/verbs1.htm). But Wallace doesn't even approach the issue from this point of view. Instead, he focuses on the middle voice (https://bible.org/question/how-does-...predestination). So am I mistaken in looking at the type of participle as opposed to looking at the voice? Even if I looked at that, I was thinking that for middle voice to be true, that would mean that the gentiles heard the gospel and then believed by appointing themselves to eternal life. I think I got the wording right... which would mean the context doesn't fit. Therefore, not middle voice?

While this is fun, it's also very frustrating! lol

[Just Passing Through]

[awretch]

I have a lot to digest here so will probably get back on all the other stuff... with more questions!

You misread Wallace. He says that the middle voice is used in Acts 29:23, but that in this verse the middle voice would be nonsense. It must be passive.

This part really confused me because there's no Acts 29 so I wasn't sure which verse he was referring to. :S

[Just Passing Through]

That was supposed to be 28:23, where the NIV translates it, "They arranged to meet Paul." They "appointed themselves to meet Paul."

[awretch]

Ok, I think I am slowly getting it. Let me try again...

καὶ ἐπίστευσαν ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον
and believed as many as were appointed to life eternal

tetagmenoi is a verb = action word. It is a participle = a type of verb that acts like a verb and like an adjective. The particular classification (such as substantive) is not a parsing thing. It's just the type of participle. It is also declined as opposed to conjugated (which is normally used for verbs).

"as many as" refers to the "subset of Gentiles". Worded another way... "the subset of Gentiles" were appointed to life eternal believed

This is an awkward way of saying it because it could be reduced to... "the subset of Gentiles" appointed to life eternal believed. The format "verb to be" + appointed (anarthrous participle) matches the "periphrastic participle" type (per the chart).

perfect = past tense but because it is Greek perfect, therefore the time aspect is different than English. In English, it is a completed action in the past and the effect of it stays in the past. In Greek, it is an action that completed in the past but the effect of it carries forward to the present.

tetagmenoi describes/modifies "as many as" that's why it matches as "nominative masculine plural"

Therefore, the subset of gentiles were appointed at some time in the past. Their appointment status carried forward up to the point where they believed. And then it ends because the appointment state was interrupted by the believing state.

More questions...
1. For the anarthrous state, what article is missing but assumed from "appointed"?
2. I thought the physical word order mattered. Why is appointed after believed but re-ordered in English, believed is after appointed?
3. Can you explain a bit more on the Greek perfect? I don't think I'm really getting the difference between the English perfect and the Greek perfect. :(
4. I don't understand "past-perfect" that you mentioned above. I can't find it online either. Could you expand on this one for me?

[tabibito]

1. οι def art: nom masc pl (assuming that the perfect tense is playing as a noun).
2. Physical word order is far less important in Koine Greek than in English. It has a usual structure, but the author's choice of emphases can lead to unusual structures.
3. Perfect tense is as you said earlier - a continuing state that began with an action in the past. (also something that has been experienced - not relevant here).
... Work is/has_been finished for the day. (It will resume tomorrow)
4. Past Perfect - was a continuing state that existed in the more recent past that began with an action in the more distant past.
... Work was/had_been completed for the day. (It resumed the following day).

This is the only reference for τεταγμενοι in the New Testament. Identifiably not passive, because passive verbs aren't associated with accusative nouns (ζωην is accusative)*.

Literal: As many as believed (they) were being having gotten eternal life assigned (to them). That takes a bit of unpacking.
Koine Greek usually doesn't use the pluperfect, which normally is indicated by an aorist verb (often a participle) preceding another past tense verb (aorist or imperfect). The order is in this case important.
"Believed" (aorist) precedes "were being" (imperfect). "Believed" therefore = "had believed" after which they "were being," which compounds with "having gotten ~ assigned."
So: an English equivalent, correcting for the dictates of grammar, is "As many as had believed were being having been assigned eternal life."

*passive FORM verbs can take an accusative: the sense then is causative passive - not relevant to the current discussion.

[Just Passing Through]

[tabibito]

So - First they were appointed to eternal life, then they believed.

That takes some consideration.

[awretch]

Ok, I've been thinking about the additional stuff you two have said and I'm stuck on a different part.

So far, I have...

"as many as" is the relative pronoun
"were appointed" is the participle
"believed" is the main verb

But, "as many as were appointed" is the subject which means the main verb, "believed", modifies (wrong terminology?) the subject. I don't understand how that can be. I thought "as many as" is the subject. It is, after all, the subset of the Gentiles, no? I see in the chart that the periphrastic participle is almost always nominative. Since nominative refers to "subject" and both "as many as" and "were appointed" are nominative, is this why "as many as + were appointed" is the subject? Is that how you arrived to that conclusion?

On the bright side, thanks to all the various examples you guys provided, I *think* I get the difference between the Greek and English perfect. So it sounds like the subset of Gentiles were appointed and are in a state of appointment even "today" and in a way, the "future" as well. Sometime in there, they believed. Since that's an aorist imperfect active, then they (as the subjects) took the (past) action of believing. Can it be interpreted as... God appointed them from the foundation of the earth (passive voice) and when they heard the gospel, they believed "on their own" (active voice)? The appointment ends at "eternal life" (which basically shows that the appointment "state" never ends). I put "on their own" in quotes because I'm thinking if God appoints, then the believing action happens from the appointment. Which means they don't really "believe" on their own (in a sense). (Maybe my reformed bias is being inserted in this part lol) Is that a better interpretation than what I had before?

For the pluperfect, do you think it was an oversight not to have it included in the morphology on BibleHub? Because pluperfect is one of the options that they could've parsed out according to their chart of abbreviations. Instead, they chose to use perfect tense. (Sorry, I haven't figured out how to do the declensions and stuff yet so I was just wondering about it.)

I went back to the Wallace article and I think I get what he's saying now. I might be misunderstanding this but I think he's saying that the perfect passive form and the perfect middle form for tetagmenoi looks the same. Therefore, we need to use context to determine its usage since they would be indistinguishable in form. Because tetagmenoi is in perfect tense, that indicates the action having occurred and completed in the past (before the "believing" action). As a result, it would not have made sense for the people to have appointed themselves to eternal life prior to believing. Therefore, the passive voice is the one that makes sense. Did I get that right?

[Just Passing Through]

[awretch]

Hmmm, I think I'm still missing something for this part. So far, I understood this:

"as many as" <-> "were appointed"
"were appointed" <-> "believed"

I don't think I'm getting how "as many as" can be combined with "were appointed" to be the subject of "believed". That is...

"as many as" + "were appointed" <-> "believed"



Sounds like true Arminianism at least from what I understand of the Articles of Remonstrance. But I get where you are coming from. I guess a greater context (outside of this verse) is still needed!

[tabibito]

Middle voice causes problems for anyone who thinks English doesn't have middle voice. (Which will be almost all of your texts). The sad fact is that English DOES have a middle voice, and its use is as fluid as that of the Koine Greek. In common with Koine Greek, English middle voice doesn't look a whole lot different to passive.

John got dressed. "to dress" is understood to be intransitive. That understanding eliminates the need for an explicit reflexive "himself" between "got" and "dressed."
As is readily apparent, this use of the middle voice is indistinguishable from the passive:
A. John got fired. "to fire" is transitive. The nature of the verb, "fired," leads inevitably to the conclusion that John received the action of "fired." ie, this is a passive construction.
What happens when "fire" is conjugated for the middle voice.
B. John got himself fired. The direct object needs to be explicit, otherwise the sentence will be mistaken for a passive construction.
C. Peter got John fired. "fired" is essentially indirect causative. Neither Peter nor John perform the action.
D. John got the baby dressed. Suddenly, "to dress" is shown to be transitive, and the sentence uses "dressed" in the middle voice, but who performed the action? The context provides information that John (probably) performed the action.

Now we apply this knowledge to "Judas bought a field." In the Koine Greek texts, "bought" is in the middle voice.
Judas got a field bought. Pattern C?

You will find that most of the more recent Koine Greek study texts are stating that reflexive action is indicated only occasionally by the middle voice, some of them relating it to causative. Some few, a little older, say things like "the usual explanations of the middle voice tell us that it is reflexive. Most of the time that explanation just does not work."

Note also - English can use "had" to denote middle voice: John had the car washed. (causative passive) John didn't wash the car ("got" would be ambiguous.)

[awretch]

I recall reading that English doesn't have "true" middle voice though. Not that it cannot be constructed indirectly and directly... I have to search for where I read it. I could be mistaken...

[tabibito]

Come to that - we don't have a "true" passive nor a "true" future - nor much of anything else really - it's all constructed from auxiliaries.

[Just Passing Through]