Structural Analysis of Hans Förster’s “Die exegetische Bedeutung einer numerischen Inkongruenz von Subjekt und Verb. Das Beispiel λαός in Lk 20,19”

edition_spec

This structural analysis presupposes NA28 for the New Testament and the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition for the Septuagint. The focal verse (Luke 20:19) reads (within 50 words): “Καὶ ἐζήτησαν οἱ γραμματεῖς καὶ οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς ἐπιβαλεῖν ἐπ’ αὐτὸν τὰς χεῖρας ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ ὥρᾳ, καὶ ἐφοβήθησαν τὸν λαόν, ἔγνωσαν γὰρ ὅτι πρὸς αὐτοὺς εἶπεν τὴν παραβολὴν ταύτην.” The key noun here is λαός (laos, “people”), a collective singular that, under constructio ad sensum, can govern plural verbal or pronominal forms. Comparative data include the scene arrangement across Luke 20 (Luke 20:9, 16, 20), the Synoptic parallels (Mark 12:12; Matt 21:46), and multiple LXX examples (Exod 14:31; 19:8; 32:6; Lev 9:24). With respect to variant sensitivity, the verbal forms and person/number markers in Luke 20:19 are stably transmitted in the major editions, and no meaning-determinative variants are reported; the interpretive fork is driven by syntax and discourse analysis rather than textual criticism (variant sensitivity: stable).

textual_variants_and_interpretive_forks

The crux is the logical subject of ἔγνωσαν (“they realized”) in Luke 20:19, which yields two interpretive branches. The first reading assumes single-subject continuity across the paratactic chain: the “scribes and chief priests” are the subject not only of the preceding finite verbs (“they sought,” “they feared the people”) but also of ἔγνωσαν. This reading secures syntactic economy in clauses bound by καί and the causal γάρ and coheres with the Markan sequence (“they sought—feared—realized—left,” Mark 12:12) as well as with the continuity of agency in Luke 20:20 (“they sent,” i.e., the same actors proceed to the next action; anchors: Luke 20:19–20; Mark 12:12).

The second reading appeals to the convention of constructio ad sensum and to Luke’s Septuagintal stylistic affinity to argue a subject switch: the immediately preceding object “the people” becomes the logical subject of ἔγνωσαν. On this construal the verse runs: “they feared the people, for [the people] realized that he had spoken this parable against them.” This aligns naturally with Luke 20:9 (the addressee is explicitly “the people”), Luke 20:16 (the respondents to Jesus are plausibly the same “people”), and Luke 20:20 (the rulers stand at a remove, “watching” and “sending others,” thus narratively distanced from the crowd; anchors: Luke 20:9, 16, 19–20). The grammatical plausibility of the switch is bolstered by LXX usage in which a collective singular subject frequently governs plural verbs or pronominals (e.g., Exod 14:31 LXX: “ὁ λαός … ἐπίστευσαν”; see also Exod 19:8; 32:6; Lev 9:24) and by Luke-internal evidence (Luke 1:21: “ὁ λαός … ἐθαύμαζον”). The liabilities of this branch lie in the absence of an overt subject-switch marker and in the relative scarcity of exact NT parallels with the same micro-structure, which raises the reader’s processing cost. Both branches are securely anchored in primary texts, and even without textual variants the verse admits divergent narrative focalizations on purely syntactic/discourse grounds.

language_semantics_and_discourse

The language and discourse of the verse and its immediate context display the convergence of a Koine/LXX habit—treating collective singulars as semantic plurals—and Luke’s scene-setting. The collective singulars λαός (laos, “people”), ὄχλος (ochlos, “crowd”), and πλῆθος (plēthos, “multitude”) are regularly encoded as singulars yet combine with plural verbs, pronouns, or participles when construed as aggregates in LXX usage (e.g., Exod 14:31; 19:8; 32:6; Lev 9:24). Within Luke-Acts, Luke 1:21 explicitly exhibits this number mismatch with “the people,” which suggests that Luke’s Greek reflects Septuagintal habits.

In the Synoptic parallels, one also observes discourse progressions in which a direct object “crowd” becomes the semantic subject of a following clause. Matt 21:46 reads: “they feared the crowds, because [the crowds] held him to be a prophet,” mapping the object to the logical subject of the ἐπεί clause; Mark 11:32 shows similar logic: “they were afraid of the crowd; for all [of them] held John to be a prophet.” Within Luke 20, the foregrounding of the addressee “the people” (Luke 20:9) and the plausible identification of the respondents in 20:16 with the same group together create discourse pressure to hear the “realizing” in 20:19 as the cognition of the people. The time deictic ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ ὥρᾳ (“at that very hour/moment”) functions as a Lukan device for connecting simultaneous yet spatially separated scenes, much like ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ in the Emmaus narrative (Luke 24:13), and compresses tension and response across a short narrative span. These language/discourse observations indicate that the subject decision in 20:19 is not dictated by intra-sentential surface form alone but interacts with scene arrangement, addressee specification, and Lukan cohesion markers.

intertext_signals_note

The intertextual signal here is not quotation or explicit allusion but an echo-level affinity with Septuagintal Greek, especially in syntactic patterning and stylistic habit. Accordingly, the intertextual strength is best characterized as echo, grounded in syntactic and discourse parallels rather than lexical overlap. This auxiliary signal supports the availability and historical plausibility of a Septuagintal construal in Luke, while cautioning against parallelomania by requiring cross-checks with semantic and narrative cues.

Summary Limitations

This structural reading relies on the furnished text and OCR excerpts and offers qualitative analysis at the levels of syntax, discourse, and style. It does not undertake a corpus-wide quantitative survey of collective-singular/plural agreement in the NT nor a CBGM-based reconstruction of local stemmata. Nor does it adjudicate redactional hypotheses among the Synoptics; it instead privileges functional parallels in the Synoptics and stylistic clues internal to Luke. For that reason, it intentionally refrains from a single definitive subject ruling for ἔγνωσαν and compares the two branches in terms of discourse fit and explanatory costs. Scriptural quotations respect the 50-word cap and the “original-first-mention” rule for Greek; LXX examples are necessarily illustrative rather than exhaustive.

Boundary Compliance Note

This report remains within a structural-analysis scope, treating only internal textual, variant, linguistic, and discourse evidence. It excludes forecasting, topic proposals, and scoring. Quantitative observations are kept strictly auxiliary, and intertextual signals are reported at echo level on syntactic grounds. It is important to note that this report was generated by the MSN AI Theological Review System (v7.1).

#hashtags #gospel_of_luke #luke_20 #laos #ochlos #constructio_ad_sensum #septuagint #greek_grammar #discourse_analysis #textual_criticism #synoptic_gospels #hans_foerster

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Related Notes

This analysis demonstrates a methodology that resolves an exegetical crux by focusing on the detailed syntactical function of a single Greek word (λαός). For a similar methodological approach, where a deep lexical study of the word λόγος is used to unlock the theology of the Epistle of James, see the following note:

• [[Parrehsia/004 Joseph G. Allen - God's λόγος in James and Early Judaism/Structural Analysis|Analysis of 'λόγος' in James and Early Judaism]]