What’s an Anacoluthon? (Monday with Mounce 62)

I went in to see the doctor a while back and he said that I had, well, I didn’t know the word he used. It was too long and Latin-based. I asked him what that meant, and he said, a cold (I think it was).

“If it is just a cold,” I asked, “then why not call it a cold?”

“Because we can’t charge you a lot of money to diagnose a cold,” he responded.

“No, really, why use a long complicated term when a short one would do?”

My doctor is a long-term personal friend, so we have lots of fun conversations. Honestly, part of the answer is to sound esoteric he said, but part of it is to be medically specific. “Cold” is a pretty large category, and I had a specific form.

But before we start blaming the medical profession for something, we should look at our own discipline and ask if we do the same thing. I snicker sometimes when I use the word “lexicon” to describe a dictionary. Why do we call it a “lexicon”? Perhaps there is a historically specific reason, but perhaps we like to sound especially learned.

Or how about “anacoluthon”? This is a Greek term that means “a sentence or construction that lacks grammatical sequence” (an + akolouthos, “not following”). In general parlance, it is just a sentence fragment. Why not call it a “grammatical error”? Well, perhaps we can be more specific than using the broad category of “grammatical error,” and perhaps some of us recoil a bit in saying that the Bible has an “error.” So we take a deep breath and say that this verse exhibits anacoluthon.

A simple example is 1 Tim 1:3. Paul writes, “As I urged you when going to Macedonia to remain at Ephesus that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine ….” The sentence goes to the end of v 4, and verse 5 starts a new sentence. What is missing? A subject and a verb! So technically vv 3-4 are a sentence fragment, a series of dependent clauses without a main clause.

Translations do a series of things to get around the problem. The ESV changes the participle “remaining” to an imperative “remain!” (also TNIV, NASB, RSV, NET). The NRSV changes the past tense “urged” to “urge”; “I urge you, as I did when I was on my way to Macedonia, to remain in Ephesus.” The “as I did” is to retain the fact that Paul is thinking about a past event. The NLT reads, “When I left for Macedonia, I urged you to stay there in Ephesus and stop those who are teaching wrong doctrine.” I thought I remember seeing a translation that placed a dash at the end of v 4.

These are all legitimate ways to try and make Paul’s Greek acceptable. The tricky thing is to let the English reader know that Paul is referring to a past event, and that he is in essence repeating the same charge; he has not changed his mind as to what Timothy should be doing.

This is why all full expressions of the doctrine of inerrancy make allowance for grammatical “mistakes.” At times I suspect the grammatical errors are totally on purpose. Revelation is full of anacoluthon, but that is because John is in an ecstatic state and partial sentences and other incongruities help convey the sense of his ecstasy. But other times the mistake is just a mistake. Perhaps he didn’t feel like spending the time for his amanuensis to scrape the parchment and start v 3 over again.

Whatever the historical reason, the biblical writers are human and God in his sovereignty worked through them, and that included not always finishing their sentences.

Statements of the doctrine of Inspiration should not be based on how we think God should have done it, but on what we can see of how he did.

William D. [Bill] Mounce posts every Monday about the Greek language, exegesis, and related topics at Koinonia. He is the author of numerous books, including the bestselling Basics of Biblical Greek (third edition coming in 2009!), and general editor for Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament Words. He served as the New Testament chair of the English Standard Version Bible translation. Learn more and visit Bill's blog (co-authored with scholar and his father Bob Mounce) at www.billmounce.com.

 

 

Comments

[Rev. Clifton H. Payne, Jr]

This very good article highlights a perpetual problem in Biblical studies and teaching. We continue to use non-biblical terms as though they are scriptural. No where in scripture is the term infallible used for the word of God. The term inspired is used but not infallible. In 30 years of Biblical study I've come to the opinion that God left us problems in the text so we would not worship the text but rather the God who inspired the author of the text. Scripture says that the word of God is alive and sharper than any two edged sword. Is the text the living word or is the living word when the Spirit of God takes a text and makes it come alive in our hearts and minds and brings transformation to our lives. I suggest the latter. To divorce the text from the God who ultimately authored the text brings all kinds of interpretations that bring with it all kinds of errors and at times evils, as history will verify. We would do well to use the terms that scripture uses to define itself rather than to use our own conceptions. How many children have been told that the Bible is "the infallible word of God and if you can find any error in it it could not have been written by God." Then in later life they discover problems with the text and conclude that the Bible could not be God's word to humanity. Unfortunately this has happened to more than one good scholar. It is a pity that sometimes our ideologies are more important than the truth.

[Irving Salzman]

Good article. Good food for thought. But can we really call fragmented sentences "grammatical mistakes?" As you say, John's fragmented sentences in Revelation were
seemingly purposeful, intended to convey his rapturous ecstasy. My point is only that sentence fragments may violate our sense of proper grammar conventions, but is that really the same as a mistake? Inasmuch as "the Sabbath was made for man," grammar too was made for man to use as he wishes. I don't know that breaking popular grammatical "convention" is the same as committing grammatical error. Some of our greatest English poets and authors violate popular literary convention all the time. Yet we don't question their literary greatness.

While we're on the subject of Paul's propensity for anacoluthons, we might also throw out, for discussion, Paul's other very common propensity for Ellipsis. It is quite interesting to see how interpreters struggle to fill in the missing words with numerous possibilities. One might well wonder why God's inspired revelation would force us into such guesswork.

[Brian Hodge]

Why do we think that our rules of grammar are inspired? Have we ever thought that God might actually speak in sentence fragments, run on sentences, etc. in clear and utter violation of our rules of grammar? I think we think way too much of our rules of grammar.

[Bill Mounce]

Some people do believe that God can only speak with proper grammar, which of course is a rule that no seasoned author agrees with. I have had students that could not process the fact that God does not finish a sentence, or puts a singular verb with a plural subject. It is unfortunate but real.

[Joe Rutherford]

Dr. Mounce could the way Paul wrote here possibly have been recognized has acceptable greek grammer in his day? If so then it was not a grammatical error. On the other hand, even if it was technically an error, it is still a very effective and clear statement. Thanks for the topic. Your work is always interesting.

[Bill Mounce]

Sometimes breaking grammar is the best way to make meaning clear. Grammar cannot be the lord and master, but can only be the servant of communication -- my opinion. If you break grammar too much, you don't communicate. If you rigidly follow all the rules of grammar, you probably are not a very good communicator. Again, my opinion.