2 Cor. 5:19

Harold R. Holmyard III hholmyard at ont.com
Sun Jul 30 01:49:41 EDT 2000


Dear Paul,

You write abou MH LOGIZOMENOS in 2 Cor 5:19 :

>So I would like to translate, 'not wishing to reckon their transgressions
>against
them', if that is not stretching the scope of MH? Cf. Ezek 33:10-11.

The argument you have for this conclusion, that only those in Christ
participate in the Abrahamic blessings, may not govern this context. For
Paul says that God actually did reconcile the world to Himself.

BAGD  under MH, at II.2.b, states that MH occurs with the participle when
it has a conditional, causal, or concessive sense. Therefore I would be
inclined to regard the MH as expressing a causal relationship. The
translation might be:

"But all things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ
and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ
reconciling the world to himself, since He did not account to them their
transgressions and since He placed in us the word of reconciliation."

However, BAGD states in II.2.d that MH "is also used very frequently where
classical Greek would require OU. The lexicon gives several examples, among
them:

TON MH GNONTA hAMARTIAN      the one not knowing sin (2 Cor 5:21)

TUFLOS MH BLEPWN       blind, not seeing (Acts 13:11)

MH ASQENHSAS THi PISTEI KATENOHSEN         not being weak in faith, he
considered (Rom 4:19)

If that were the case here, then MH could be a simple negative, I guess.


				Yours,
				Harold Holmyard





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