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b-greek-digest V1 #127




b-greek-digest           Saturday, 24 February 1996     Volume 01 : Number 127

In this issue:

        Re: Gen. 1:1-2, and the Greek of it
        Re: Rahlfs LXX app. question
        Re: Summary: Something from Nothing (longish) (fwd) 
        Unsubscription
        Re: Eph.4:19
        Re: Eph.4:19
        Research Methods in the Fathers 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: David Moore <dvdmoore@dcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us>
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 10:27:44 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Gen. 1:1-2, and the Greek of it

On Thu, 22 Feb 1996, Will Wagers wrote:

> David L. Moore writes:
> 
> >        I would suggest that creatio ex nihilo is not so much explicit as
> >it is implicit within the Old Testament (although Gen. 1:1 is pretty
> >definite).
> 
> Gn 1:1 is definitely definite, but diametrically opposed to your position.
> I don't know Hebrew, so I cannot comment on the discussion of how to
> segment Gn 1:1. But, it is a red herring as far as the discussion of creatio
> ex nihilo goes, because it doesn't matter which way you interpret it. The
> argument is not about "the beginning of what": It's not that it doesn't say
> "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." It's in what
> the words *mean*.
> 
> It is understandable that the scientific meanings of words are omitted
> from theological dictionaries. But, when they are pointed out, I see no
> reason to ignore them. However, we should be doing this on B-HEBREW?
> 
> >A possible reason that the explicit doctrine does not appear
> >until II Mac. may be that it was only when the Hebrew culture came in
> >contact with Helenism as a philosophical system with its cosmology that
> >postulated a pre-existing mass of matter that it was necessary to make
> >explicit what is implicit throughout all of the OT.
> 
> What explicit doctrine? Certainly not Second Maccabees in Alexandrian
> Greek. Edward Hobbs notes that "the *implication* (my ital.) of creatio
> ex nihilo, according to Encyclopaedia Judaica (5:1059), 'first appears in
> II Maccabees 7:28.'"
> 
> 2 Mc 7:28: "I beseech thee, my son, look upon the heaven and the earth,
> and all that is therein, and consider that God made them of things that
> were not; and so was mankind made likewise."
> 
> This passage could be the poster child for my thesis. The cosmos is made
> in the same manner as a *child*, not from nothing, but from no-thing.
> Further, if this is the first implication, how can the OT be said to hold it
> implicitly.
> 
> >        Something analogous to a certain extent happened in Christianity
> >with the emergence of the doctrine of the Trinity which was not explicitly,
> >but rather implicitly present in the New Testament doctrines about God.
> 
> Something analogous did, indeed, happen with the doctrine of the Trinity:
> Father (God), Son (Demiurge), Holy Spirit (Cosmos), all characters straight
> out of the original cast of  _Timaeus_.
> 
> I don't know that this discussion is of general interest to the list. Perhaps,
> if you wish to continue, we should go off list.

Will,

	Your arguments depend mainly on theories that I don't share.  
Your imposition of Greek philosophy on the message of the NT seems to me 
un-called-for by anything within the message of the NT itself.  If you 
were pointing out areas of dialogue between Greek philosophy/cosmology and 
the message of the NT, I could see it.  But, IMHO, your theories of major 
dependence between the Bible's central message and Pagan cosmology are not 
sustainable.

	Some of the positions you advocate (eg. apostolic Christianity's 
being more closely related to Greek thought than to Old Testament faith) 
are very similar to positions espoused by some of the early heretics.  
Marcion, for instance, wanted to do away with the Old Testament, reduce 
the Gospels to an abbreviated edition of Luke and do away with all except 
what he considered the most Pauline of the Pauline epistles.  Marcion's 
ideas and others like them were considered by the church and decided 
against many centuries ago.

	Regarding II Mac. 7:28, I don't see how GNWNAI hOTI OUK EC ONTWN 
EPOIHSEN AUTA hO QEOS can be understood as anything but an explicit 
expression of creatio ex nihilo.  By KAI TO TWN ANQRWPWN GENOS hOUTW 
GINETAI is understood God's bringing into being the human race.  The 
neuter article TO here indicates a reference to a well-known fact.  
So I really don't understand what you are getting at when you say it 
could serve as "poster child" for your thesis.

	Let me suggest, to keep this thread on subject for this list, that
we try to keep our presuppositions in the background and concentrate on
exegesis of the text. 


David L. Moore                             Southeastern Spanish District
Miami, Florida                               of the  Assemblies of God
dvdmoore@dcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us           Department of Education
http://members.aol.com/dvdmoore



------------------------------

From: "James D. Ernest" <ernest@mv.mv.com>
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 11:10:29 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Rahlfs LXX app. question

As Philip indicated, and a helpful private posting from Albert
Pietersma explained at somewhat greater length, La is the Old
Latin.  Thanks.

- -----------------------------------------------------------------
James D. Ernest                            Joint Doctoral Program
Manchester, New Hampshire, USA      Andover-Newton/Boston College
Internet: ernest@mv.mv.com           Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts



------------------------------

From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 12:39:45 -0600
Subject: Re: Summary: Something from Nothing (longish) (fwd) 

On 2/22/96, Stephen C Carlson wrote:
>
> Carl W. Conrad wrote:
> >On 2/21/96, Stephen C Carlson wrote:
> >> I can dig up the references if anyone would like, but the Greek physician
> >> Galen (late second century) criticized the creation EX NIHILO doctine of
> >> the "followers of Moses" (i.e., both Jews and Christians).  So maybe that
> >> helps to narrow down when the doctrine emerged (i.e., it is not a modern
> >> view).
> >
> >Stephen, this would be very helpful, as I'm getting increasingly fascinated
> >by this question. I'm finding some interesting stuff in Louw-Nida on POIEW
> >and KTIZW as well, but it seems to me that what it says about KTIZW is
> >questionable. I'd like to check your Galen reference if you can find it and
> >see (a) if he refers to a Jewish/Christian source in particular, and (b)
> >what language he uses to refer to the doctrine.
>
> I went back to my reference, Robert L. Wilken, THE CHRISTIANS AS THE
> ROMANS SAW THEM (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984) pp 83-93, and
> it appears that I missed a crucial nuance in his chapter on Galen.
>
> Galen did not explicitly criticize the creation EX NIHILO, but rather
> criticized the Christian and Jewish belief that God created the world
> out of an (arbritrary) act of volition.  De usu partium 11.14.  This
> belief was the immediate precursor to creation EX NIHILO, and around
> the time of Galen, according to Wilken, there was no fixed
> interpretation of Genesis 1:1.    On one hand there was Justin Martyr
> (1 Apol. 10, 20) holding to the Platonic views, but on the other hand
> there was Theophilus' first mainstream formulation of creation EX NIHILO
> (EC OUK ONTWN, ad Autol. 2.4) written about the same time as Galen's De
> usu.  Shortly before Theophilus, the Gnostic Basilides also formulated
> a creation EX NIHILO doctrine (second quarter of the second century), but
> his influence on mainstream Christianity is uncertain.

I cite Stephen's post from yesterday because it sets the frame for what I
expect to be my last contribution to this thread which Will Wagers started
a few days ago. I've found it fascinating, I don't doubt that some have
found it boring, others exasperating. I want to thank David Moore for
putting up that thread from  B-Hebrew on the question of Genesis 1:1-2 and
how it is to be understood. I have to say that that thread challenges my
very meager bit of Hebrew; I will say also that I agree that there's been
no real satisfactory answer to David's question about verse 2 beginning
with WAW. It appears to me that there are sufficient reasons to trip the
balance for understanding that text as one may prefer to read it as
implying absolute creation or creation out of pre-existent substance.

Probably more important for the question of the emergence of a CREATIO EX
NIHILO doctrine is the Greek text. The LXX reads Genesis 1:1 as a separate
sentence, EN ARXHi EPOIHSEN hO QEOS TON OURANON KAI THN GHN. Louw-Nida have
interesting notes on POIEW and KTIZW: POIEW, they say, is to create a
product out of a raw material; KTIZW, however, is the preferred word in the
NT texts for God's creative activity; without quite saying so directly,
they imply by contrast with POIEW that KTIZW should refer to creating out
of nothing. It is certainly conceivable that that's the way the NT writers
meant to use KTIZW, but I personally rather doubt that they were thinking
in terms of any explicit doctrine of a modus operandi of God's creation
other than that God's SOFIA or LOGOS was the agent of God's creating--a
doctrine developed in the Hellenistic Jewish Wisdom tradition.

I think it should be obvious that both POIEW and KTIZW are metaphorical
verbs when applied to God's creation. POIEW is problematic because it DOES
imply a pre-existent matter; that could be a reason for preferring the verb
KTIZW, which BAGD and Louw-Nida both emphasize as the regular NT verb for
"create"--although neither notes that the original sense of KTIZW is
"found" or "establish a colony." I don't think we get a metaphysical
doctrine of creation clearly stated when we use terms that are clearly
metaphorical.

I thought it worth checking Philo's De Opificio Mundi, as I have noted
before--and I have commented on that before. Philo works with the LXX text
and also with the Hellenistic Jewish Wisdom tradition in the background.
Although he uses the verb POIEW which he takes directly from the LXX text,
it is ironic to me that he begins his account of creation with an elaborate
image of a Hellenistic city-builder (he may very well have in mind the
splendid plan and construction of Alexandria itself) who carefully draws
out IN HIS MIND (whether or not "on paper") a formal scheme of the city's
layout--a Platonic idea of the city--and then produces it on the spot. That
is to say, Philo is actually thinking of the process of creating as the
work of a KTISTHS in the original Greek sense of that word--not in the
specialized NT sense of "creator."

I cited Stephen Carlson's post to me from yesterday above because his
citation from Robert Wilken brought us another interesting phrase:

>                              .    On one hand there was Justin Martyr
> (1 Apol. 10, 20) holding to the Platonic views, but on the other hand
> there was Theophilus' first mainstream formulation of creation EX NIHILO
> (EC OUK ONTWN, ad Autol. 2.4) written about the same time as Galen's De
> usu.  Shortly before Theophilus, the Gnostic Basilides also formulated
> a creation EX NIHILO doctrine (second quarter of the second century), but
> his influence on mainstream Christianity is uncertain.

As I recall, Edward Hobbs? (My thanks or apologies to whoever actually
deserves the praise or blame for bring it up) also cited a II Maccabees as
referring to a creation EC OUK ONTWN. Will Wagers responded that that's
just another instance of "creation out of no-thing" rather than creation
out of NOTHING--in that sense I tried to sketch a couple days ago of a
substrate termed by Plato MH ON and by Aristotle PRWTH hULH--completely
unintelligible, formless "pure possibility."

Well, I have found it lurking in the instances cited in BAGD under KTIZW;
it is Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 1.1.6:

        hO QEOS hO EN TOIS OURANOIS KATOIKWN KAI KTISAS EK TOU MH ONTOS TA ONTA
        KAI PLHQUNAS KAI AUCHSAS hENEKEN THS hAGIAS EKKLHSIAS AUTOU ...

Here it is not EC OUK ONTWN but EK TOU MH ONTOS--it is Plato's very term
for the antithesis of Being which is the foundation of Aristotle's "prime
matter."

I mentioned also the other day that my colleague Patout Burns had said that
the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo had emerged actually from an attempt to
solve the problem of evil. I think it is worth pointing out that St. Thomas
solves that problem by equating evil with "not being." It is not created by
God; yet it has some sort of demonic potency.

This is not really the dualism that one wants to combat by means of the
CREATIO EX NIHILO doctrine. As I argued a couple days ago, there is no
intent to undercut the faith-proposition that there is no creation that is
not attributed to God in this assertion. Rather it is a paradox--and we can
have no theology without paradoxes unless we push Calvinistic assumptions
to the point that we deny freedom of the will altogether in order to make a
wholly rational world-order. Most of us, I think, affirm BOTH God's
pre-conditioning AND human freedom to choose--although it is impossible to
square the two points rationally. I think that the doctrine of CREATIO EX
NIHILO likewise involves a self-contradictory proposition: we are caught on
the horns of a dilemma, asking, "is nothing really nothing--or is nothing
something after all?" And I suspect we may have to end up saying it's both.

In sum, it seems to me that believers in the sovereignty of the God of
Israel were drawn inevitably into the web of Hellenistic speculation as
they encountered the perils and possibilities of Greek cosmological
speculation. They embraced in part the Zoroastrian mode of dealing with the
problem of evil and postulated a Satan opposing the power of God, but
making him a fallen angel rather than a dualistic counter-power, and so in
theory preserving the notion of God's creative sovereignty. But they also
embraced in part Greek conceptions of creation: the Platonic model of thee
DHMIOURGOS or artisan crafting a finished product out of a raw material or
the Philonic model of the founder of a city, who conceives his blueprint of
a human community as a KOSMOS and proceeds to execute it in space and time.
They intended to do this without infringing upon the sovereignty of God,
but they couldn't really escape the paradox that KTISIS is rooted in,
shaped, molded, or bulldozed out of--NOTHING. And I suppose this also has
theological implications: we have no being at all, but for the creative and
redeeming love of God.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu  OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



------------------------------

From: Jakob Heckert <heckej@ccaa.edu>
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 13:50:56 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Unsubscription

unbuscribe b-greek

------------------------------

From: Carlton Winbery <winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net>
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 15:47:30 -0600 
Subject: Re: Eph.4:19

Steve Glock wrote;

>We were in Ephesians 4:19 this morning.
>
>Question 1.  Re PAREDWKAN, I've assumed forever (in oft-encountered
>instances of similar verbal forms) that this is a kappa-aorist of
>PARADIDWMI. But because 4:18 has two perfect participles and 4:19 opens
>with a perfect participle, adverbially modifying PAREDWKAN, the thot just
>popped into my head: Why couldn't this actually be a perfect instead of
>an aorist? (I realize that the syntax doesn't require such a conclusion,
>rather, it was merely the juxtaposition of these other perfect forms to
>this form that prompted my thinking.)  My limited resources only provide
>accidental forms for DIDWMI without prepositions in composition with the
>root. So the question is, then - would the perfect spelling of PARADIDWMI
>be PAREDWKAN OR PARADEDWKAN?  (Based on my understanding that perfective
>reduplication in a verb in composition with a preposition takes the form
>of an augment - it seems PAREDWKAN could be either aorist or perfect.)

PAREDWKA is a K aorist.  The perfect form is PARADEDWKA.  Note the the
lexical for is also reduplicated with I.  PARADIDWMI.

>Question 2. Re PASHS (in the phrase "unto every filthy deed").  I at
>first thought this to be either a mere descriptive Genitive modifying
>AKAThARSIAS.  One student suggested that PASHS stood in apposition to
>AKAThARSIAS in the sense that PASHS is a more particular reference to
>what AKAThARSIAS is generally.  Although I follow this reasoning, my
>understanding is that in a true appositional genitive, both the genitive
>and the word it modifies should be in the same class, as in the instance
>"the word of truth". Am I right here, or does the general nature of the
>term PASHS actually allow it to be either descriptive and/or appositional?

PASHS is an adjective agreeing with and modifying AKAQARSIAS, hence "every
kind of impurity."

>Question 3. Our discussion re PASHS led to a further puzzler (which made
>me wonder, because I thought I had all this straightened out long ago)
>whether I was losing my mind!?). Another student then thought that PASHS
>was actually an objective genitive with a noun of action, modifying
>ERGASIAN exactly as AKAThARSIAS (which we took to be an objective
>genitive with a noun of action in relation to ERGASIAN).  His reasoning
>was that however we classified AKAThARSIAS we must necessarily do the
>same with PASHS as both are genitives and since both are actually
>modifying ERGASIAN.

PASHS is an adjective modifying the objective genitive but as such would
not be an objective genitive.

>My first response was that his reasoning would be justified IF the
>adjectives were both in an attributive relation to the noun. Right? (And
>doesn't a true attributive adjective have to share the same case, gender
>and number as the noun it modifies?) I concluded then that since
>AKAThARSIAS and PASHS were both genitives (albeit feminine singulars)
>they were not strictly attributively modifying ERGASIAN, thus, the case
>classification of the one adjective should not be assumed for the second.
>Right or wrong?

There is only one adjective here, PASHS. AKAQARSIAS is a noun in the
genitive. Since ERGASIAN implies action the noun in the genitive can be
objective genitive.  If its not objective, I would describe it as
descriptive.  To some degree all genitives describe.

Carlton Winbery
Chair Religion/Philosophy
LA College,
Pineville,La
winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net
winbery@andria.lacollege.edu
fax (318) 442-4996 or (318) 487-7425



------------------------------

From: "Gary S. Shogren" <gshogren@voicenet.com>
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 96 21:44:35 EST
Subject: Re: Eph.4:19

At 02:27 PM 2/22/96 -0500, Steve Clock wrote:

>We were in Ephesians 4:19 this morning.
>
>Question 1.  Re PAREDWKAN, I've assumed forever (in oft-encountered 
>instances of similar verbal forms) that this is a kappa-aorist of 
>PARADIDWMI. But because 4:18 has two perfect participles and 4:19 opens 
>with a perfect participle, adverbially modifying PAREDWKAN, the thot just 
>popped into my head: Why couldn't this actually be a perfect instead of 
>an aorist? (I realize that the syntax doesn't require such a conclusion, 
>rather, it was merely the juxtaposition of these other perfect forms to 
>this form that prompted my thinking.)  My limited resources only provide 
>accidental forms for DIDWMI without prepositions in composition with the 
>root. So the question is, then - would the perfect spelling of PARADIDWMI 
>be PAREDWKAN OR PARADEDWKAN?  (Based on my understanding that perfective 
>reduplication in a verb in composition with a preposition takes the form 
>of an augment - it seems PAREDWKAN could be either aorist or perfect.)

Yes, you were right that this is an aorist form.  The perfect of PARADIDWMI
appears only in Lukan material in the NT: Luke 4:6 and Acts 14:26
(middle-passive forms) and Acts 15:26 (perfect active partic.).  The perfect
form reduplicates off the delta - PARADEDWKA, etc.  The juxtaposition of one
tense against verbs of another tense may be exegetically significant;
nonetheless, it doesn't force the finite verb to be of the same tense.  The
RSV renders the verb "they have given themselves over...", rendering it
similarly a perfect tense in meaning, but it's still aorist!  Some may label
it Culminative Aorist, which would yield that shade of meaning - like the
aorist in Rom. 3:23.

>Question 2. Re PASHS (in the phrase "unto every filthy deed").  I at 
>first thought this to be either a mere descriptive Genitive modifying 
>AKAThARSIAS.  One student suggested that PASHS stood in apposition to 
>AKAThARSIAS in the sense that PASHS is a more particular reference to 
>what AKAThARSIAS is generally.  Although I follow this reasoning, my 
>understanding is that in a true appositional genitive, both the genitive 
>and the word it modifies should be in the same class, as in the instance 
>"the word of truth". Am I right here, or does the general nature of the 
>term PASHS actually allow it to be either descriptive and/or appositional?

You're right in putting the PASHS with the AKATHARIAS, but a simple
anarthrous attributive position would explain it as "all uncleanness."
That's very different from a Descriptive Genitive, an example of which could
be "man of sin."  If it were apposition, it might sound something like:
"They gave themselves over to uncleanness, [that is] wickedness", and that's
only if you could rule out an epexegetical genitive.

>Question 3. Our discussion re PASHS led to a further puzzler (which made 
>me wonder, because I thought I had all this straightened out long ago) 
>whether I was losing my mind!?). Another student then thought that PASHS 
>was actually an objective genitive with a noun of action, modifying 
>ERGASIAN exactly as AKAThARSIAS (which we took to be an objective 
>genitive with a noun of action in relation to ERGASIAN).  His reasoning 
>was that however we classified AKAThARSIAS we must necessarily do the 
>same with PASHS as both are genitives and since both are actually 
>modifying ERGASIAN.

>My first response was that his reasoning would be justified IF the 
>adjectives were both in an attributive relation to the noun. Right? (And 
>doesn't a true attributive adjective have to share the same case, gender 
>and number as the noun it modifies?) I concluded then that since 
>AKAThARSIAS and PASHS were both genitives (albeit feminine singulars) 
>they were not strictly attributively modifying ERGASIAN, thus, the case 
>classification of the one adjective should not be assumed for the second. 
>Right or wrong?

Yeah, I think you gave a good answer, although PASHS is best viewed as
attributive to ERGASIAN.  ERGASIAN I can see as a nice solid example of an
action noun, making AKATHARSIAS an objective (or perchance subjective)
genitive.  Even though you have two genitives next to each other, they can
(usually do!) have different syntactical functions (check out the string of
genitives in Mark 1:1 as a good example).  Your students sound like mine - I
have to constantly remind them not to pursue those just-plausible theories
about syntax too far.  Many genitives, you can with some imagination make
any and every possibility work - I tell them to remember, this is just a guy
making a statement and another guy writing it down.


And Steve, listen - it's a good question, and I'm glad you felt free to ask
B-GREEK.  Personally, I think issues of this nature are a good exercise for
all of us.


------------------------------

From: "Gary S. Shogren" <gshogren@voicenet.com>
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 96 21:44:15 EST
Subject: Research Methods in the Fathers 

I'm thinking through a research paper, and could use some expertise.  This
is close enough to a Greek question, I hope.

I want to research the ways in which 1 Cor. 13:8-10 was interpreted in the
first five centuries of the church.  I've found a couple of places where
expositions of that passage took place w/o a direct quotation, but only an
allusion - turning an easy search into a tricky one.  Beyond checking the
secondary lit, I thought of a dual approach:

1. TLG searches, using 3-4 constellations of key words
2. E-texts of the Early Christian Fathers on the 'net, same procedure, to
catch the Latin fathers; then go back to original language texts

Am I missing some obvious search method?  Any thoughts on what is relevant
secondary lit?  You can email me personally.

Gary Shogren


------------------------------

End of b-greek-digest V1 #127
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