Rom. 1:4 EN DUNAMEI adverbial or adjectival
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Jul 13 14:18:27 EDT 1998
At 9:29 AM -0700 7/13/98, dalmatia at eburg.com wrote:
>Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
>> (1) Paul's interpretation of the phrase which he cites from Hab 2:4 as hO
>> DE DIKAIOS EK PISTEWS ZHSETAI--and which I think ought properly to be
>> construed by taking EK PISTEWS with ZHSETAI--certainly appears to be
>> understood by Paul in Rom 1:17ff in such a way that EK PISTEWS functions
>> adjectivally with hO DIKAIOS.
>
>When a modifier lies between two terms like this [here between the
>subject and the verb], I have always taken it to 'distribute' to
>[modify] both, unless otherwise contraindicated. Why does it have to
>be one or the other? The subject is united with the action of the
>verb, and the prepositional phrase [EK PISTEWS] modifies that unity.
>Are we imposing an understanding of either-or that is not appropriate
>to the Greek usage?
Certainly not AUTOMATICALLY. As I said earlier, in classical Attic you
would not find a prepositional phrase qualifying hO DIKAIOS unless there
were a hO added before the EK PISTEWS: i.e. the phrase would have to be ho
DIKAIOS hO EK PISTEWS. BDF#255, if I understand it rightly, allows omission
of the article only with traditional phrases--and I don't think this
instance classifies as such.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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