Wallace on Ga 4:14

Stephen C. Carlson scarlson at mindspring.com
Mon Sep 18 23:53:18 EDT 2000


At 10:50 PM 9/18/00 EDT, CEP7 at aol.com wrote:
>    a)  Clear Examples (Definite-Definite) 
>    Matt 3:16  PNEUMA QEOU93
>    the Spirit of God
>
>    A nonsensical translation would be “a spirit of a god.” The point of 
>Apollonius’ Corollary is that when both nouns are anarthrous and it can be 
>determined that one is definite, then the other is also definite. Thus in the 
>above example, if theou is definite, so is pneuma. [* * *]
>
>Wallace's point is that the corollary applies to AGGELOS KURIOU/QEOU. Thus, 
>grammatically speaking, it is more likely that AGGELOS QEOU in Gal 4:14 
>should be translated the angel of God (Definite-Definite).

It occurs to me that English has an analogous structure that
employs the inflected possesive form of a definite noun, as
in "God's Spirit" or "God's messenger."

Thus, I offer the following translations:

Matt. 3:16 ... KAI EIDEN PNEUMA QEOU KATABAINON hWSEI PERISTERAN ...
           ... and he saw God's Spirit descending like a dove ...

Gal. 4:14 ... ALLA hWS AGGELON QEOU EDEXASQE ME, hWS CRISTON IHSOUN.
          ... but you welcomed me as God's messenger, as Christ Jesus.

I think the definiteness/qualitativeness/indefiniteness of the
construction depends more on the semantic properties of the
head noun rather upon its grammar.

Stephen Carlson
--
Stephen C. Carlson                        mailto:scarlson at mindspring.com
Synoptic Problem Home Page   http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/
"Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words."  Shujing 2.35



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