Προς with a genitive object

[Julia Falling]

According to the Mounce Analytical lexicon, there are three uses in the NT of  with a genitive object.

 

 

I could find only one with a construct search.  I think I set it up correctly.

 

 

And, not surprisingly, a search for  προς @[PREPOSITION genitive] yields the same result.

 

If Dr. Mounce says there are three uses with genitive objects, I'm inclined to believe him, but I don't have any idea how to find the other two.  Anyone know where they are?  Curious.  Is there a way of searching that looks only for the characters themselves?  

 

If I substitute dative for genitive in the construct search I get seven hits: Mark 5:11; Luke 19:37; John 18:16; 20:11-12 (3x); Rev 1:13.

 

When, however, I do a search for  προς @[PREPOSITION -accusative], I get only 7 hits:  Mark 5:11; Luke 19:37; John 18:16; 20:11-12 (2x); Acts 27:34; Rev 1:13.  I should get 8.

 

I get 714 uses of πρός total; 7 uses (should be 8) with a non-accusative object; 707 with an accusative object.  The one with the genitive object in Acts 27:34 is missed in this search.

 

All searches were done in the NA28-Sigla.

 

[i repeated the searches using the NA27-Sigla and got 700 uses of πρός total; 7 uses (should be 8) with a non-accusative object; 693 with an accusative object.  The one with the genitive object in Acts 27:34 is included but one of the uses in Jn 20:12 was missed.  But the total is not what I got with the NA28-Sigla.  With a bit more digging I discovered that the difference between the 27th & 28th was due to the ΠΡΟΣ in the book titles.]

 

But there is a tagging problem.  It's not catastrophic but does need fixing – especially the NA28th & NA28th-Sigla.

Edited September 25, 2015 by Julie Falling

[Marco V. Fabbri]

The search in GNT28-T looks good to me, except that you may set WITHIN to 2, just in case there is some intervening γάρ or  δέ. However, I tried to do it, and it just doesn't happen. There are more hits, but they are not relevant, as the intervening word is always an accusative that goes with πρός.

 

I have no experience with the Mounce Analytical Lexicon, but if I look for πρός in the BDAG I find the following instances of genitive:

 

οἱ πρ. ζωῆς μαζοί the life-giving breasts 1 Cl 20:10. πρ. τῆς σωτηρίας in the interest of safety Ac 27:34 (πρὸς τῆς σ. as Jos., Ant. 16, 313)

 

They are exactly three, and they are gleaned from all available first century Jewish and Christian literature.

 

I wonder: is it possible that, when Mounce says three, he also means three examples out of a corpus that is larger than the NT? He may say something about this in the introduction.

[Julia Falling]

The intro says it's based on the UBS3, which has the same text as the UBS4, right?  I think perhaps there is an error somewhere, either in Mounce or the parsing in the GNT.  I really don't want to examine the hundreds of uses of προς to find it!  

 

It's not surprising that, in first year Greek, Mounce doesn't bother to introduce προς with the dative and genitive – those uses are so very rare in the NT.

[mortenjensen]

Hi Julie,

Thanks for sharing your search with us. It is a great one, actually, helpful in other situations.

I just picked up "prepositions and theology" and it reads under pros:

In Classical Greek πρός was regularly followed by three cases, but in the NT we find:

 

• only one instance of the genitive (Ac 27:34, τοῦτο γὰρ πρὸς τῆς ὑμετέρας σωτηρίας ὑπάρχει, “for this is essential for your survival”), with only 23 cases in the LXX (HR 1209), and only rare examples in the papyri (MM 544b)

• only seven examples with the dative (Mk 5:11; Lk 19:37; Jn 18:16; 20:11, 12 [2x]; Rev 1:13), all in a spatial sense

• 691 examples with the accusative (see the chart on p. 32).

 

So it seems that Mounce was either mistaken (heavens forbid) or working on another edition of the Greek text, indeed.

 

Another thing, would there be any reason not to use a search string like this: προς [ANY GENITIVE]

It gives the same in this situation, and I guess it would in all, not? Well, there are many ways to Rome,

 

Happy thanksgiving!

Morten

[Marco V. Fabbri]

I would say that this settles the issue, unless two more examples from the NT can be produced. It seems that we may confirm that Act 27:34, τοῦτο γὰρ πρὸς τῆς ὑμετέρας σωτηρίας is the only πρὸς + Genitive in the NT.

 

I strongly suspect that the information found on Mounce Analytical Lexicon depends on a misunderstanding of the information in BDAG. The other two instances are from other text of Greek 1st century literature: the First Letter of Clemens and the Antinquities by Josephus. As BDAG says:

 

οἱ πρ. ζωῆς μαζοί the life-giving breasts 1 Cl 20:10. πρ. τῆς σωτηρίας in the interest of safety Ac 27:34 (πρὸς τῆς σ. as Jos., Ant. 16, 313)

[Julia Falling]

Well, we've got that resolved.  Thanks for all the input.  This stuff may bore some folks to death but there are those of us who find it interesting.  Guess that makes us Greek Geeks.

[Steve King]

Just as an update to this when using Julie's search to ignore all accusatives there are only 6 results when using the UBS5-Sigla text. It is again the John 20:12 verse that appears to be the problem - both datives appear to be tagged incorrectly. 

[Marco V. Fabbri]

I see that in John 20:12 the tag for the second πρός is wrong.

 

 

The first looks all right to me.

 

I have submitted the correction.

[Julia Falling]

Thanks for all the attention to this — shows how we can all contribute to improvements in, and accuracy of, our favorite program.

[Marco V. Fabbri]

I see that today a lot of GNT tagged modules have been updated. There is also the needed correction in John 20:11: πρὸς τῷ μνημείῳ. πρὸς is now Preposition + Dative.