present indicative in Rom 6:14-24
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Apr 22 06:06:10 EDT 1999
At 3:51 PM -0400 4/14/99, Bryan Rocine wrote:
>Dear Carl,
>
>you wrote:
>Bryan wrote:
>> >Here is about where my question comes in. If the passage does indeed
>> >utilize a "rhetorical" present, I assume Paul anticipates his readers
>won't
>> >have nearly so much trouble understanding the rhetorical usage as all
>those
>> >commentators! Your suggestion that this passage may amount to an example
>of
>> >the "historical present" is helpful. Is that my answer? Or can the list
>> >point to other Greek literature in which a distinctly rhetorical use of
>the
>> >present is found, not of the historical present per se, i.e., some of
>that
>> >"quite a bit of ancient literary and rhetorical models that could
>illuminate
>> >the question."
>>
>> One other Pauline example of rhetorical usage of the present tense in the
>> first person comes immediately to mind: 1 Cor 13: EAN TAIS GLWSSAIS TWN
>> ANQRWPWN LALW KAI TWN AGGELWN ...
>
>But isn't 1 Cor 13:1-2 present *subjunctive* as made implied by v. 2's EIDW,
>so that the whole construction is a protasis-apodosis construction?
I've kept this message in my active mailbox and have finally gotten back to
it; I'll agree with you about 1 Cor 13:1-2 about those present tenses,
although I think that this chapter as a whole DOES fall into the category
of rhetorical first person; although Paul shifts into the third person in
13:4 to make AGAPH his subject, yet in 13:9-12 he returns to the first
person, using it first in the plural in 13:9 (EK MEROUS GAR GINWSKOMEN KAI
EK MEROUS PROFHTEUOMEN) but then into the first singular in 13:11 (hOTE
HMHN NHPIOS KTL). So I really do think we have a rhetorical use of the
first person here.
A comparable passage is Philippians 3:3ff, where Paul is indeed talking
about his own experience, to be sure, but appears to be using it in a sense
that he expects to be paradigmatic for those who hear his letter been read
aloud--so that I think this is really comparable to Romans 7 where the
first-person experience transcends any MERELY autobiographical significance.
What do you think?
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
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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