Wallace on dative of agency

Jon D. Boyd johanan at juno.com
Sat Sep 23 05:04:01 EDT 2000


I was reading GGBB by Wallace in regards to Gal. 5:16.  The verse in
Greek reads:

PNEUMATI PERIPATEITE KAI EPIQUMIAN SARKOS OU MH TELESHTE

He argues against taking PNEUMATI as dat. of agency for two reasons:

"(1) This usage is quite rare in the NT (unless, of course, we assume
that PNEUMATI on many occasions belongs here!); (2) PNEUMATI does not
occur with a passive verb, let along a perfect passive; yet every clear
example of dat. of agency in the NT occurs with a perfect passive verb"
(GGBB, 165-6).

What do you make of this discussion?  I made a cursory check of PNEUMATI
in the NT and found it with several passive verbs (e.g. Rom. 8:14; Gal.
5:18; Eph. 1:13), which seems to disagree with Wallace's statement.  

Thanks, 
Jonathan Boyd
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