1 Thess 2:15 ENANTIWN

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Oct 28 17:32:10 EST 1998


At 10:41 AM -0600 10/28/98, Michael Holmes wrote:
>At 11:15 AM 10/28/98 EST, Paul Dixon wrote:
>>
>>In 1 Thess 2:15 should ENANTIWN be taken as a participle
>>in parallel with the preceding participles APOKTEINANTWN
>>... EDKIWXANTWN ... ARESKONTWN?
>>
>>Or, should it be taken simply as an adjective (as BAG
>>has it listed under the adjective  ENANTIOS, A, ON rather
>>than the verb ENANTIOOMAI).
>
>With apologies for what Oscar Cullmann termed the "vice of auto-citation,"
>perhaps I could pass along part of a footnote from my recent commentary on
>the Thessalonian letters, as a partial answer to Paul's query; the second
>paragraph below is most directly relevant to his questions:
>
> Regarding the four participles in 2:15-16a,
>
>"The translations vary considerably in their treatment of these participles
>and the repeated KAI's in 2:15–16a: "the ones KAi having killed the Lord
>Jesus KAI the prophets KAI having driven us out KAI not pleasing God KAI,
>hostile to all people, hindering us ..."  In 2:15a, the NRSV ("who killed
>both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, ...") treats the first KAI as if it
>came after "having killed" rather than before, while the NIV ("who killed
>the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out ...") ignores the
>first and translates the third as if it were a longer phrase.  Preferable is
>either (1) "who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us
>out ..." (NASB), which links closely the verbs "killed" and "drove out," or
>(2) "who also killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out ...,"
>which picks up the list-like character of the string of accusations.
>
>"In 2:15b–16a there are competing structural patterns: while the first three
>clauses of vv. 15–16 are composed of a noun or pronoun phrase followed by a
>participle, in the fourth clause the noun phrase is followed by an adjective
>("hostile") and then a participle ("hindering").  Both the NIV ("They ...
>are hostile to all men in their effort to keep us ...") and NRSV ("they ...
>oppose everyone by hindering us ...") emphasize the adjective, as it
>immediately follows the noun clause; they treat the adjective as if it were
>a participle parallel to the first three, and subordinate the following
>participle to it.  Alternatively, one may emphasize the obvious parallelism
>of the four participles, as does the NASB ("not pleasing to God, but hostile
>to all men, hindering us ...").  But the NASB treats the linking conjunction
>KAI as though it were a contrasting one ("but," DE or ALLA); instead
>translate "they are not pleasing to God and, hostile to humanity, are
>hindering us ..." (cf. E. J. Richard, Thessalonians, 121–122).

The problem with this is that ENANTI/WN in 1 Thess 2:15 cannot be a 
participle--UNLESS it is a nominative sg. active of ENANTIOW; a participle 
gen. pl. of ENANTIOOMAI would be ENANTIOUMENWN. That having been said, 
there's nothing to prevent understanding ENANT/WN here as the genitive 
plural of the adjective ENANTIOS/A/ON with an implicit ONTWN that would 
yield the equivalent of a participle of ENANTIOOMAI.


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad at yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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