ANHR in James 1:12

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun Jun 9 08:01:29 EDT 2002


At 10:09 PM -0400 6/8/02, Harry W. Jones wrote:
>Dear Carl,
>
>Would say that ANHR in James 1:12 for example, would mean
>'a male human being' or could it have a wider range of meaning
>here?

I assume that this question was really meant for the entire list, since it
was addressed to the list rather than to me.

The text in question is MAKARIOS ANHR hOS hUPOMENEI PEIRASMON, hOTI DOKIMOS
GENOMENOS LHMYETAI TON STEFANON THS ZWHS hON EPHGGEILATO TOIS AGAPWSIN
AUTON.

In this instance, I would be obliged to say that ANHR ought absolutely NOT
to be supposed to refer to 'a male human being' but that ANHR MUST be
understood to mean 'human person.' If we didn't have the appended hOTI
clause, there might conceivably be some grounds for hesitation, some
allowance for the supposition that this writer (whether one attributes the
formulation of this text to a human author or to God as its inspirer)
wouldn't have conceived of the notion of a woman resisting temptation or
obtaining the crown of life. But such hesitation or allowance, it seems to
me, is obviated by (a) the fact that ANHR is anarthrous, which means that
the clause hOS hUPOMENEI PEIRASMON does not describe a particular intended
person but is generalized, and the masculine gender is simply standard
usage of the masculine for common gender, and by (b) the fact that the
proverbial 'crown of life' in the hOTI clause is promised generally to
those who AGAPWSIN God. Now I suppose it might be said that women are not
to address AGAPH towards God but only obedience, that AGAPH is directed to
an inferior only--but I don't see how anybody (or at least anybody who is
not 'a human male') can take that proposition very seriously.

In the last analysis then, it seems to me that the question must be whether
the author imagined or supposed that a woman could be a 'human person.'
Ultimately, I imagine, it may be a matter of whether an INTERPRETER or
TRANSLATOR can imagine or suppose that a woman can be a 'human person'--or
whether an interpreter or translator can FAIL TO imagine or suppose that.

MAKARIOS ANHR followed by a relative clause appears 2x in the GNT (James
1:7 and Rom 4:8--an OT citation from Ps 31:2), 13x in the LXX (Gen. 30:13;
Deut. 33:29; 1Kings 10:8; 2Chr. 9:7; Tob. 13:15-16; 4Mac. 7:15,22; 10:15;
17:18; 18:9; Psa. 1:1; 2:12; 31:1-2; 32:12; 33:9; 39:5; 40:2; 64:5;
83:5-6,13; 88:16; 93:12; 105:3; 111:1; 118:1-2; 126:5-127:2; 136:8-9;
143:15; 145:5; Prov. 3:13; 8:34; 20:7; 28:14; Eccl. 10:17; Job 5:17; Wis.
3:13; Sir. 14:1-2,20; 25:8-9; 26:1; 28:19; 31:8; 34:15; 48:11; 50:28; Sol.
4:23; 5:16; 6:1; 10:1; 17:44; 18:6; Is. 30:18; 31:9; 32:20; 56:2; Bar. 4:4;
Dan. 12:12)--and incidentally I'm grateful for this new "concordance"
feature of Accordance version 5.5.

Among these I note with interest Isaiah 56:2 MAKARIOS ANHR hO POIWN TAUTA
KAI ANQRWPOS hO ANTECOMENOS AUTWN KAI FULASSWN TA SABBATA MH BEBHLOUN KAI
DIATHRWN TAS CEIRAS AUTOU MH POIEIN ADIKHMA, where the parallel clause
ANQRWPOS hO ANTECOMENOS AUTWN KTL. would surely seem to be generic and
indicate that the ANHR of the first clause is also generic. Here again, one
may raise the question whether the author conceived or imagined that a
woman could be a 'human person'--and if not, one might imagine or suppose
that ANHR can only refer here to 'a human male.'
-- 

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/



More information about the B-Greek mailing list