godbreathed
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Sep 20 09:17:01 EDT 1999
At 8:00 AM -0400 9/20/99, Jim West wrote:
>At 01:36 PM 9/20/99 +0200, you wrote:
>>I am looking for secular or other biblical uses of the word theopneustos
>>(as used in 2 Tim. 3:16).
>>
>>Was this a common word? How would you define God-breathed?
>
>It occurs in Ps.-Phocylides and some of the Sybilline oracles and some other
>obscure Greek inscriptions. In the NT it only occurs in 2 Tim.
>Whether we like it or not, I think that the word is used by the author to
>denote his idea that God "breathes" into his writer that which he wishes to
>have said- just as in Greek thought the Muse breathes the idea into the mind
>of the poet or writer. To put it mythologically, God is the Muse for the
>writers of various NT documents (so far as the author of 2 Tim is concerned).
What Jim says is right enough, but I think this way of putting it may make
what's being said sound more mystical than is necessary; just recognizing
that the -PNEU- in QEO-PNEU-STOS is cognate with the word for
"spirit"--PNEUMA--and recalling the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus in
John 3 where there is a deliberately play upon the double sense of PNEUMA
as "wind" and "spirit"
(John 3:8 TO PNEUMA hPOU QELEI PNEI KAI THN FWNHN AUTOU AKOUEIS, ALL' OUK
OIDAS POQEN ERCETAI KAI POU hUPAGEI; hOUTWS ESTIN PAS hO GEGENNHMENOS EK
TOU PNEUMATOS.),
or the same evangelist's account of the giving of the Spirit to the
disciples in John 20:22 (KAI TOUTO EIPWN ENEFUSHSEN KAI LEGEI AUTOIS:
LABETE PNEUMA hAGION),
where ENEFUSHSEN is the same word used in the LXX version of Genesis 2:7
for the inbreathing of the breath of life into the nostrils of the first
created man, we can see the associations of both life and spirit in the
words for "breath" and "breathe" that are to be found in many languages and
certainly in Greek and Hebrew; so QEOPNEUSTOS does mean literally
"God-breathed" but we may ask whether the usage of the word-root -PNEU- is
to be understood literally or metaphorically here, i.e. as a term normally
associated with a material phenomenon but clearly being used of something
non-material. I would agree with Jim's analogy of Holy Spirit as
functionally equivalent to the Muse of Greek poetry; so would Milton
(Paradise Lost, 1.6-10):
Sing, heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning how the heavens and earth
Rose out of Chaos:
One point Jim makes is, I would note, disputed: whether 2 Tim 3:16 is
referring to NT texts or only to Old Testament documents when saying "All
scripture is QEOPNEUSTOS." This has been discussed on more than one
occasion in the past on this list with different list-members arguing
different positions. I dont believe that the Greek text itself can resolve
that particular question.
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
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