The Purpose of Syntactical Categories

Danny Andre' Dixon bereandad at hotmail.com
Tue Jan 4 10:13:40 EST 2000


Tony:

Think in terms of the various designations helping one to be precise in 
DESCRIPTION. Technically, there is, for example, just a nominative,  
genitive, dative, accusative, and vocative (as far as FORM) is concerned. 
But when one considers any particular passage of scripture, one can see 
immediately that different things are happening in the passage--or at least 
there is a possibility of any number of things happening in a passage.

The various distinctions, as I'd see it, provide a means of precisely 
TALKING ABOUT the nuances of the biblical text, almost in a code language of 
sorts.

As far as the genitive is concerned, one could, for example look at 2 
Corinthians 5:14 and see a genitive, e.g. "The love OF CHRIST constrains 
us". Without a sense of distinction (that dividing up the genitive into 
categories would compel), one might approach the passage with a preconceived 
idea that forced the idea that our love for Christ compels us to be God's 
ambassadors. I suppose that would be fine. But then someone else might come 
at the verse from another angle and see it as saying that Christ's love for 
us (in his sacrificial death, perhaps?) motivates or compels us. Someone 
else might notice both the objective or subjective nuances, and say that 
Paul had BOTH ideas in mind and chose to express globally his thought in the 
genitive case.

One, the other, or both, as regards the genitive, one must admit that the 
phrase is capable of various conclusions to be drawn. Putting "tags" on the 
respective cases merely serves as a means of describing what is before us as 
we read and gives us tools that allow us to talk about the word of God in an 
intelligent way.

Danny Andre' Dixon
M.A. Bible and Related Studies,
Abilene Christian University

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