ALLHLWN

Gie Vleugels gvleugels at etf.edu
Tue Dec 24 03:23:15 EST 2002


Peter,
Do you have a reason to believe that the early (Greek speaking!) Christians ever read James 5:16 (i.e. ALLHLOIS ... hUPER ALLHLWN) in another way than the way sanctioned by 'later' church practice?  The first one ever to quote the verse (Origen, in his 2nd Homily on Leviticus 4) and all the other Greeks interpreting the verse take it 'semi-reciprocally'.  My motif to read it as they do is not theology, but text and context.  James 5:14 says explicitly that it is the elders who pray, and 5:15 says explicitly that it is the sick person who may be in need of forgiveness.  
'Later' church practice is not wrong by definition.  If that were the case, what about our (21st century) church practice?
Have a nice Christmas eve,
Gie Vleugels
www.etf.edu

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Peter Kirk [mailto:prkirk at pmbx.net]
Verzonden: maandag 23 december 2002 13:02
Aan: Biblical Greek
Onderwerp: [b-greek] RE: ALLHLWN


Gie, you misunderstand me. I started with the opinion that ALLHLWN ruled
out the interpretation I was arguing against, others did not accept my
argument, and so I asked the question on b-greek.

But we can't go down the road that we cannot argue from preconceived
ideas about the meanings or use of words. We cannot make true the
statement "two plus two equals five" by arguing that "in this context
five means one more than three". In English that is not the meaning of
"five". Similarly, if (and this is unproven) ALLHLWN apparently always
has a reciprocal meaning, then we must interpret every occurrence in the
light of this and be reluctant to accept a different meaning.

And, as I said before, your interpretation of James 5:16 is an
importation of later church practice.

Peter Kirk
peter.r.kirk at ntlworld.com
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gie Vleugels [mailto:gvleugels at etf.edu]
> Sent: 23 December 2002 19:09
> To: Biblical Greek
> Cc: b-greek at franklin.oit.unc.edu
> Subject: [b-greek] RE: ALLHLWN
> 
> Sorry for the Dutch.  I copied it from the syntax course I prepared
for my
> students (Greek II) and forgot to translate it into English.  Now in
> English:
> "Take care: ALLHL- cannot allways be taken strictly recipocal.  E.g.
in
> James 5:16 there is a one-way traffic:  the elders pray for the sick,
and
> the sick confess their sins to the elders.  The logic behind this use
is
> that this one-way traffic takes place within one community, so that
one
> can still speak of a kind of reciprocity."
> You write: "Gie's interpretation of this verse was very likely ruled
out
> by the use of ALLHLWN".  Isn't the use of ALLHLWN exactly what we're
> trying to figure out?  We shouldn't allow a preconceived idea about
"the
> use of ALLHLWN" settle the interpretation in each individual passage.
> This is what semantics is all about.
> Gie Vleugels
> www.etf.edu
> 


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