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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