Abraham or Sara?

Nichael Cramer nichael at sover.net
Wed Dec 6 11:22:19 EST 2000


Rafael Rodriguez wrote:
>This is my first post, so I humbly ask for patience.
>
>In Hebrews 11.11, UBS 4 Rev. reads: PISTEI KAI AUTH SARRA STEIRA DUNAMIN EIS
>KATABOLHN SPERMATOS ELABEN KAI PARA KAIRON hHLIKIAS, EPEI PISTON hHGHSATO
>TON EPAGGEILAMENON.  The first phrase (PISTEI KAI AUTH SARRA STEIRA DUNAMIN)
>is listed as a 'C' reading, but the variants do not seem to affect the
>identification of the subject of this sentence.
>
>My question is: does anyone know why both the NIV (1984) and the NRSV (1989)
>make Abraham the subject?  The NIV blatantly supplies the so-far missing
>Abraham, while NRSV understands the subject of ELABEN simply as "he."  Is
>there any reason not to understand Sara as the one described as faithful
>(Genesis accounts notwithstanding ;o} )?  Thanks for the feedback . . .

The companion to the UBS4, "A Textual Commentary on the Greek NT" 
reads, for this verse:

   "The difficulties with this verse are well known ...
    Appreciating the lexical difficulty, but unwilling to emend
    the text, a majority of the Commmittee understood the words KAI 
    AUTH SARRA STEIRA to be a Hebraic circumstantial cluse, thus
    allowing ABRAAM (ver 8.) to serve as subject of ELABEN"

In short, I think the committee --as with many others-- is bending
over backwards to ensure that it is Abraham (i.e. not Sarah) who
has the "seminal emission" in the sentence.


OTOH, there are those who have argued that --in spite of our
modern understand-- the author of Hebrews meant precisely that
it was Sarah who had the seminal emission, such a model of 
conception being quite in tune with contemporary physiology.

See, for example:

Pieter Willem Van Der Horst's "Did Sarah Have
A Seminal Emission?" Bible Review (Feb 1992).

Nichael


--
Nichael Cramer
nichael at sover.net
http://www.sover.net/~nichael/ 



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