The structures of Gal 2:4 and 2:6

Moon-Ryul Jung moon at sogang.ac.kr
Mon Apr 22 10:46:25 EDT 2002


Gal 2:4-5 reads:

4 DIA DE TOUS PAREISAKTOUS YEUDADELFOUS hOITINES PAREISHLQON
KATASKOPHSAI THN ELEUQERIAN hHMWN [...]
5 hOIS OUDE PROS hWRAN EIXAMEN THi hUTOTAGHi hINA hH ALHQEIA TOU
  EUAGGELIOU DIAMEINHi PROS hUMAS.

An English translation takes it as follows:

(It is ) because of the false brothers who ...., to whom we did not...

But it is not clear what would be referred to by "it". Verse 3 simply
says that Titus was not compelled to get circumcised. What would be
the reference of this implicit pronoun "it"? From the viewpoint of
verse 4, the reference would be the situation where the issue of 
circumcision of the Gentile believers occurred. But verse 3 seems to say
that Titus was not compelled by the three apostles,  whom Paul met
privately, to be circumcised. Therefore, it is difficult to infer
the situation which can be the referent of the implicit "it". 

So, a wild guess occurred to me about the structure of the sentence. 
I would like get some comments. Here is a translation from this wild
guess:
 
Concerning the false brothers who came in to...., to them we did not
submit even for a moment ..... 

This translation contains two crucial decisions. 
DIA DE TOUS PAREISAKTOUS YEUDADELFPOUS is taken to introduce
the topic. hOIS in verse 5 is taken to be a demonstrative pronoun.

Another reason for the above translation is the parallelism/contrast 
between the beginning of 2.4-5 and and the beginning of 2.6.
DIA DE TOUS PAREISAKTOUS YEUDADELFPOUS is parallel to APO DE TWN
DOKOUNTWN EINAI TI in verse 2.6. The contrast between the two groups
is indicated by ALLA TOUNANTION (but on the contrary) in verse 2.7.
It is quite reasonable to translate APO DE TWN DKOUNTWN EINAI TI as
"concerning those important people who are somebody", again introducing
the topic of the sentence in 2.6- 9, whose main clause is found in verse
9.


Any comments?

Moon 

Moon R. Jung
Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea 


 



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