AKOH PISTEWS

Jason Lee jllee at mailcity.com
Mon Jul 26 04:42:54 EDT 1999


 
--

On Sat, 24 Jul 1999 15:44:43   Dmitriy Reznik wrote:
>Dear friends,
>
>Probably you could help me to understand an expression, used in Gal.3:3:
>EC ERGWN NOMOU TO PNEUMA ELABETE H EC AKOH PISTEWS, ("Received ye the 
>Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?"), and also in 
>Gal.3:5.
>What can AKOH PISTEWS mean: hearing with faith, or preaching about faith, 
>or anything else?
>
>Dmitriy Reznik
>
>---

Zerwick puts AKOHS PISTEWS quite literally as 'heeding the faith preached'. The contrast is the working out of the OT law versus the hearing (heeding and obeying) of the NT faith, i.e., the message of the New Testament.

AKOH also means the thing heard, thus a 'report' or a 'message' as in Rom. 10:16.

Some would put EX AKOHS PISTEWS into a hendiadys: 'out of hearing and believing', as does the Amplified Bible. Others, based on Rom. 10:17(hH PISTIS EX AKOHS), render EX AKOHS PISTEWS as 'by believing what you heard', as do the NRSV and the NIV. (More like taking it as EX PISTEWS AKOHS, either way.)

Generally, I would think twice before translating a Greek genitive noun into an adjective, for if that was the intended meaning, there were plenty Greek adjectives in the lexicon to choose from.


Jason



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