Question on NIV of 1 Tim. 6:12

Mike Sangrey mike at sojurn.lns.pa.us
Wed Sep 1 09:43:02 EDT 1999



cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu said:
> The text: AGWNIZOU TON KALON AGWNA THS PISTEWS, EPILABOU THS AIWNIOU
> ZWHS, EIS hHN EKLHQHS KAI hWMOLOGHSAS THN KALHN hOMOLOGIAN ENWPION
> POLLWN MARTURWN.

Wouldn't it be better to render this:
  "Fight the good fight of faith, seize the eternal life to which you've been 
called.  Also, you confessed the good confession before many witnesses."

In short, adjust the punctuation of the GNT.

Paul is about to charge Timothy THRHSAI SE THN ENTOLHN ASPILON...  I think we 
could say that Paul doesn't care when the confession was made, he is stating 
the fact that Timothy did confess and he uses that fact as part of the ground 
upon which he builds his charge to Timothy.  Notice the reflection of KALHN 
hOMOLOGIAN by Jesus Christ in the next verse.  Would this not then be 
motivational--Jesus did it and you did it?  Might this not be why Paul worded 
it the way he did?

This brings up a related question:  Could THN ENTOLHN refer back to all four 
imperatives; Paul thinking of them as a single command?  If that can be done, 
then the four imperatives are semantically parallel (possibly different ways 
of saying the same thing) and it would make sense for Paul to use a KAI to 
make the following clause not parallel (at least not with the same type of 
parallelism.)

-- 
Mike Sangrey
mike at sojurn.lns.pa.us
Lancaster, Pa.
       There is no 'do' in faith, everywhere present within it is 'done'.





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