2 Cor 5:17

sandra hack polaski shpolaski at btsr.edu
Tue Jul 23 14:09:04 EDT 2002


I'm considering the famously terse 2 Cor 5:17a:
hWSTE EI TIS EN CRISTW KAINH KTISIS
with the help, as it turns out, of my _Precise Parallel NT_ (about which
there was some discussion on this list a little while ago).  Most of the
translations add both a form of the verb "to be" and a "he is" or "there is"
to the phrase:
...if any man be in Christ he is a new creature...(KJV)
...if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation... (NIV)
...if anyone is in Christ there is a new creation... ((NRSV)
...whoever is in Christ is a new creation... (NAB)
and so forth.  The Rheims NT, though, offers this translation:
If then any be in Christ a new creature,...
making the whole thing the protasis of a statement that will be completed by
...the old things are passed away, behold all things are made new.
In its favor, this translation requires the addition of fewer elements to
make sense.  Against it, it seems to assume an argument that the text hasn't
made (that in Christ one is a new creature), whereas the other translations
have this assertion being made in this verse.
Any ideas?
--Sandra Hack Polaski
*********************************************
Sandra Hack Polaski      shpolaski at btsr.edu
Associate Professor of New Testament
Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond




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