Hebrews 11:6b

Larry Swain swainl at calcite.rocky.edu
Tue Jul 7 02:44:23 EDT 1998


Hi Edward, 
My apologies for not being clear.  My language can sometimes be dense, it 
isn't you, I assure you.  You asked:

"So ... what should I understand from this? If by "latter" you mean the
                         latter part of Hebrews 11:6b, are you saying that 
God being a rewarder
                         is not to be translated to seem to be a result of 
God existing?"

Yes, exactly.  There isn't anything in the grammar or nuance that suggest 
that the author thinks of God the Rewarder resulting in some way from the 
statement that He is. Then you asked:

"As you can probably tell, I'm not quite understanding your point. Also,
                         does this directly answer my question about 
whether the "that" should be
                         construed also with the end of 11:6b - i.e., " ... 
must believe THAT He
                         exists and THAT He becomes a rewarder ..."? What 
are you saying about my
                         suggested (but obviously highly-unpopular) 
alternative - "must believe
                         THAT He exists; and He becomes a rewarder to those 
who seek Him"?

Let me try this again and see if I can do better.  What it is necessary for 
the one approaching God is that he believes God is, and that he believes 
God is the rewarder of those who seek him.  Grammatically we have two 
phrases governed by the infintive PISTEUEIN.  It doesn't really matter if 
you use one "that" in English or two-that's simply a stylistic choice.  To 
translate "must" is fine, DEI covers that although it does add some force 
in English that "It is necessary" doesn't quite carry, but again that is a 
choice you make as translator and there doesn't seem to be anything in the  
text or context to mitigate against it.

The context of the following passage I think argues against attempting to 
understand the second phrase of Heb 11.6b as not governed by the infintive 
PISTEUEIN.  The passage is about those who have faith and receive reward.  
That is this verse sets up the remainder of the chapter-the two things that 
are necessary to understand what he is saying are right here-belief that 
God is and the He rewards seekers.  To separate the Reward phrase and make 
it ungoverned by the infinitive changes that and sticks out rather sorely 
from the following passage.  I'm not certain that that is clear at 
all......well, it is to me.  But if it is necessary for one approaching God 
to only believe, but not believe in the promise of the reward which every 
person in the following list received doesn't make sense.  Your suggestion 
makes that second phrase of Heb 11.6 a descriptor of God and not a 
"condition" (I'm not talking grammatical conditions here) of receiving the 
promises that the author is here detailing.  Ok, I think I've clouded the 
issue enough, hope it makes some sense.

On another note, I have often wondered about the ESTIN here-one would like 
to read it as either a Platonic "being" statement but would expect hO WN or 
something similar or some Hebrew reference to Ex 3.11-in which again one 
would EGO EIMI or at least AUTOS ESTIN...but neither is the case, so we're 
left with ESTIN -"He is", and probably does refer to belief in that God 
exists.

One of the respondants here did say that a Greek audience would not 
necessarily have believed in God's existence-but that isn't quite true.  A 
Greek audience would have had no problem believing in the existence of God, 
what's one more?  They would have instead sought to make (and did by the 
way) the Hebrew YHWH in some way equivalent to what they knew-Zeus.  The 
discussion about whether God exists (or gods exist) is a modern one (with 
notable exceptions such as the Pre-Socratic philosopher Zeno who posited 
that the gods are made in the image of whatever race worships them).

Enough.

Larry Swain



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