Ephesians 4:12

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun Jul 14 10:57:17 EDT 2002


At 5:10 PM +0200 7/13/02, Iver Larsen wrote:
>Carl said:
>> I really don't want to leave the realm of B-Greek at all, and I do hope
>> that my answer bears on the Greek text fundamentally. Nor do I want in any
>> way to discourage others with opinions on this text from having a
>> say on it (after all, I'm going to confess that I can't analyze it to my
>> own satisfaction).
>
>Let me have a go since you do not discourage it. In the following I am only
>keeping what I'd like to comment on.

Iver, I've never discouraged an alternative opinion, provided it is
expressed within the appropriate parameters of B-Greek discussion. I would
note, however, that in the discussion that follows it seems to me that you
have misunderstood my intention; certainly you may dispute my view that the
Greek text of this passage is, as I have asserted, "syntactically loose,"
and you may go on to assert that it is in fact quite clearly articulated
and that the author's intent is fully intelligible. But I think in some of
your comments below you are misunderstanding or misrepresenting (surely
unintentionally) my own intention. My comments below are intended only to
clarify my own position regarding this passage.

><snip>
>> Certainly one has to view Eph 4:7-16 as a
>> textual unit, and one must relate EDWKEN in vs. 11 to EDWKEN DOMATA TOIS
>> ANQRWPOIS, while vs. 12 pretty clearly indicates the intention underlying
>> the giving of the gifts and vss. 13ff. indicate the length and breadth of
>> the maturation process through which those gifts are intended to assist
>> "the saints."
><snip>
>> Perhaps there is no clear differentiation between the usage of
>> PROS and EIS
>> in vs. 12--and I almost think that it would be more "honest" to represent
>> the looseness of the Greek in a loose English (for English substitute any
>> other target language) rather than to attempt a more precise articulation,
>> the effect of which is to tip the scales in favor of one interpretation of
>> what's ambiguous rather than another. So I'd suggest:
>>
>> "for the equipping of the saints for servanthood-work, for construction of
>> Christ's body" The comma following "servanthood-work" reflects the
>> punctuation of UBS4/NA27, but quite frankly, I think that this
>> construction is so loose that there's no way of being sure that EIS
>OIKODOMHN TOU
>> SWMATOS TOU CRISTOU is intended other than as a parallel to PROS TON
>> KATARTISMON TWN hAGIWN.
>
>You are here moving into translation theory and what is most "honest". I can
>see why a literal translation would appear more "honest" to one's
>understanding of the structure, but I don't think it is "honest" in terms of
>communicating the originally intended meaning. I am pretty sure that the
>above suggested rendering is much more obscure in English than the original
>was in Greek, partly because English is poor in prepositions compared to
>Greek, partly because "construction" does not have the metaphorical sense
>that OIKODOMH has. And of course, it is not normal English, but what we
>sometimes call "translationese".

I had no intention of discussing translation theory nor did I intend the
English version I offered to be "a literal translation." Indeed, I put
quotation-marks around "honest" and characterized my English version as "a
loose English." I am sorry if I made it appear that my "loose English" was
intended to be "a literal translation." It does seem to me that you're
faulting me for not doing what it was not my intention to do. Although in
my previous message I didn't characterize the literary style of this writer
as "impressionistic" (and hesitate even now to do so for fear the adjective
may be misleading), it does seem to me that the phrasing of several
word-groups within the Greek text has a vagueness or imprecision
contributing to a difficulty in any attempt at precise syntactic and
semantic analysis of details, while at the same time the reader does not
hesitate to recognize an intelligibility in the broader textual construct
as a totality. My loose English was intended to convey an "impression" of
how the Greek text works, and if one or more of the words I used were
clearly not "normal English," then perhaps I was successful in conveying my
sense that the phraseology of the Greek of this passage is not quite
"normal Greek" either. My sense regarding the prepositions PROS and EIS in
this passage is that they don't really convey any distinctive normal sense
of PROS and EIS with accusative such that one could characterize by saying,
"PROS + acc. = 'toward' + object"; rather PROS and EIS might either one
convey what a colloquial user of English means by "with regard to," or "in
respect of," or "as to," or "at," or even, as an American teen-ager of
recent era might put it, "like--you know--" (when, more often than not, we
by no means do/did know). I suppose I could have used "edification" for
OIKODOMH (it's a not-unuseful equivalent for the way Paul uses the word in
1 Cor), but it seems to me that the phraseology of the passage we are
discussing involves a rather strange mixed metaphor of mechanical
engineering and biological growth--one might compare the images Paul uses
in 1 Cor 3:6ff for the work of "church-builders." In 1 Cor 3 the images are
distinct, but here it seems to me that they are blurred so that at one
point those "given" by the risen Christ are house-builders while at another
point, ALL of us are in a process of growth into an organic whole or an
adult that is a corporate "body of Christ." I can only repeat what I said
before: I think the reader can readily envision the activity in the bees'
hive that is becoming the body of Christ, but I don't think one can work
out a detailed analysis of the phraseology and syntax.

>> While I have personally been very impressed by the NET as a
>> whole--and what I like best about it is that it explains and defends its
>translators'
>> conception of "how the text means"--, I am inclined to think that NET errs
>> in its attempt to articulate this text in English far more precisely than
>> it is articulated in the original:
>>
>> "4:12 to equip12 the saints for the work of ministry, that is,13 to build
>> up the body of Christ, "
>>
>> The translator notes then explain this reading thus:
>>
>> "12tn On the translation of PROS TON KATARTISMON TWN hAGIWN (pros ton
>> katartismon ton hagion) as "to equip the saints" see BAGD 418 s.v.
>> KATARTISMOS. In this case the genitive is taken as objective and
>> the direct object of the verbal idea implied in KATARTISMOS (katartismo").
>> "13tn The EIS (eis) clause is taken as epexegetical to the previous EIS
>> clause, namely, EIS ERGON DIAKONIAS)."
>>
>> Now I do think this is one perfectly reasonable articulation of the
>> elements of vs. 12, but (a) I don't find the explanation so cogent that I
>> cannot just as likely conceive EIS OIKODOMHN TOU SWMATOS TOU CRISTOU to be
>> parallel to PROS TON KATARTISMON TWN hAGIWN.
>
>I would say that NET did a good job here in terms of its modified-literal
>translation philosophy, and I agree that the second EIS clause is
>epexegetical and parallel to the first. As you said, one needs to interpret
>v. 12 in the context of 7-16, and it is significant that the word OIKODOMH
>resurfaces in v. 16.
>V. 16 says EX hOU PAN TO SWMA ... KAT' ENERGEIAN EN METRWi hENOS hEKASTOU
>MEROUS THN AUXHSIN TOU SWMATOS POIEITAI EIS OIKODOMHN hEAUTOU EN AGAPHi
>
>Here it seems that it is the body that produces its own growth in accordance
>with the measure of work that each member of the body is able to do towards
>the strengthening/building-up in actions governed by love.
>
>Because both v. 12 and v. 16 include word parallels like ERGON-ENERGEIA, EIS
>OIKODOMHN TOU SWMATOS-EIS OIKODOMHN hEAUTOU (i.e. TOU SWMATOS) it seems
>reasonable to conclude from v. 16 that in both verses it is the individual
>members of the body that are to do the servant ministry of building up the
>whole body.
>
>In v. 12 the PROS can without problem be taken as purpose or goal for God
>giving the five special ministries, namely that they should train/equip all
>the saints for something. That "something" is expressed through the first
>generic EIS clause: a work of service, and further explained through the
>second parallel EIS clause: building up the body of Christ.
>
>So, it seems that Paul expects each member of the body to have its share in
>building up the other members (which fits with 1 Cor 12-14 where OIKODOMH
>occurs frequently). In addition, the five ministries mentioned have the
>added responsibility of training the other members (and one another) for the
>building up of the whole body. Each of the five ministries has three levels:
>basic level for all, intermediate level in the local church ministry and
>advanced level in regional or international ministry. The upper two levels
>include a training aspect. But now I am moving away from the Greek to the
>wider context.

Well, Iver, it is quite clear that you find the NET version satisfactory
for much the same reason that I do not: you are convinced by its accounting
for the details of the Greek construction, while I am not thus convinced.
And that means nothing more than that we understand this text in different
ways.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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