Gal 1:6

Steven Craig Miller scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Fri Dec 10 19:12:58 EST 1999


To: Dr. Carlton L. Winbery, Byron Knutson, et al.,

CLW: << Thus I would translate QAUMAZW OTI hOUTWS TACEWS METATIQESQE APO 
TOU KALESANTOS hUMAS EN CARITI EIS hETERON EUAGGELION as "I am amazed that 
you are so readily moved from the one who called you by grace to another 
gospel." >>

FWIW ... and perhaps contrary to popular opinion, I would take METATIQESQE 
as passive, rather than middle, and so translate this passage as: "I am 
amazed that so quickly you have been turned away from your calling by 
[Christ's] grace into a different gospel" (Gal 1:6 MOT).

By taking METATIQESQE as a passive (or at least a possible passive), I 
would then accuse St. Paul of having some pastoral sensibilities. For he 
seems here to put the bulk of the blame on another. I see the same 
rhetorical strategy at work when he states "there are some who are 
confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ" (Gal 1:7); when he 
asks "Who has bewitched you?" (Gal 3:1); and also when he says: "I wish 
those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!" (Gal 5:12). In each of 
these statements the blame has shifted away from the Galatians onto someone 
else. It is a very pastoral rhetorical strategy at work here I think. (The 
suggestion of taking METATIQESQE as passage appears in LSJM under METATIQHMI.)

Of course, that has nothing to do with the original question.

-Steven Craig Miller
Alton, Illinois (USA)
scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Disclaimer: "I'm just a simple house-husband (with no post-grad degree), 
what do I know?"




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