JoeWallack wrote:Since "Mark" does have overall themes of Jesus being "the son of man" and "lord" I think the best you can do here is what ASV has "so that the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath". "Son of man" refers to Jesus, "lord" is Jesus' relationship to Sabbath and the conjunction "and" means that the Sabbath is just another thing that Jesus is lord over.Joseph
I agree that this is the best meaning of the sentence. But in the end you do not really answer my question. You show „only” how to solve the grammatical problems and to translate the sentence into the traditional meaning. I assume our Greek is very limited, but the following examples may not be wrong. Let's hope so.
1) The phrase
A: the Son of the Man is Lord of Sabbath
B: the Son of the Man is Lord of the Sabbath
would normally be in biblical Greek
A: ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου έστιν κύριος σαββάτου
B: ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου έστιν κύριος τοῦ σαββάτου
The phrase
the Son of the Man is Lord even of the Sabbath
would normally be in biblical Greek
ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου έστιν κύριος καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου
2) To emphasize the object or to indicate interchangeability between subject and object (or maybe other reasons) you can put the object before the subject. (This works also in German perfectly, but I do not know if it works also in English.)
A: Lord even of the Sabbath is the Son of the Man
B: Lord is - even of the Sabbath - the Son of the Man
The preferred word order in biblical Greek would be
A: κύριος καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου έστιν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου
B: κύριος έστιν καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου
I think, that the second phrase B corresponds perfectly to your interpretation of Mark 2:28.
κύριος έστιν καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου
Lord is - even of the Sabbath - the Son of the Man
So it is no wonder that laparola shows the following minor variants for
Matthew 12:8 -
κύριος γάρ (indeed)
ἐστιν καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (124 372 565 pc ς ND Dio)
Luke 6:5 -
Κύριός ἐστιν καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (p4vid copsa copbo(pt) )
This phrase is clear. The genitive
“τοῦ σαββάτου” is modifying
“κύριος” and no Bar Kurios can come around the corner and claim that the phrase could also mean "son of the Sabbath".
3) The problem starts only in Mark 2:28, where the sequence of the words
“κύριος” and
“τοῦ σαββάτου” is interrupted.
κύριός ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου
Lord is the Son of the Man and/even of the Sabbath
In the last two days I was looking for a phrase in the Septuagint and in the NT using the exact same word order as in Mark 2:28
noun as subject + noun in genitive + καὶ + noun in genitive
(υἱὸς + τοῦ ἀνθρώπου + καὶ + τοῦ σαββάτου)
in which the last genitive noun does not modify the subject. It is quite possible that I have overlooked something, but I have not found such a phrase. In all cases the
“καὶ” means
“and” and the last genitive is modifying the subject. Trust me!
Finally, this is not a decisive argument. Mark is not just any writer. But let‘s say, the phrase in the sense of “even of the Sabbath” would be a highly unusual word order.
4) So, why do not we understand the phrase “
ὁ υἱὸς (τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ)
τοῦ σαββάτου” in the sense of “the son (of man and) of the Sabbath”?
I would say one of the main reasons is, that
“υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου” (Son of the Man) is a title and a fixed expression (but Mark maybe invented it) and it would be strange to “mix” the title with another unusual term. For example: Everyone would understand the meaning of the phrase
“Son of God and of Christmas”
as an expression for Jesus, but it would be unusual. The phrase would be ambiguous if I say (not knowing if it works in English, in German it would work in an arranged form)
“A brightness is the Son of God and of Christmas”
It could mean that the Son of God and of Christmas (=Jesus) is a brightness. But it could also mean that the Son of God is a brightness in general and in particular that the Son of God is a brightness of Christmas.
I would say the more unusual the second genitive is and the more the thematic context suggests it, the more the reader would refer the second genitive to the object and not to the subject. But this is never the first choice.
5) I do not want to defend rigidly a vague possibility. Most of the reasons points to “Lord even of the Sabbath”. No doubt!
Thanks for all comments.