Friberg Lexicon and "TOUCH" in 1 Cor. 7:1

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Jun 18 05:58:37 EDT 2002


At 9:13 AM +0200 6/18/02, Iver Larsen wrote:
>> The Friberg Lexicon says that hAPTESQAI is used idiomatically in
>> 1 Cor. 7:1
>> to mean "to marry."  This would support what I was saying.  "It
>> is good for
>> a man not to marry/be concerned w/ a woman" (that was the main point I was
>> trying to make).
>>
>> in Christ,
>> Jonathan B. Ferguson
>
>These kinds of questions are what bible translators struggle with. First, to
>get a good grasp of the meaning intended, one needs to study the whole
>section, and in this case the relevant section is 7:1-7. There is often a
>sandwich structure in a text based on or influenced by Semitic thought
>structure, or more technically an inclusio, which means that the beginning
>and end of the section link up and cover the same idea in different words.
>In this case, there seems to be a link between "not touching a woman" and
>Paul's comment: "I wish that all were as I am", that is, having the gift of
>living in celibacy.

Iver, you have many times spoken of this as a Semitic pattern of thought
and I have wondered about this more than once but hitherto have said
nothing about it. I am wondering whether perhaps it is not so much a
SEMITIC pattern of thought as a pattern of thought commonly to be found in
ORAL composition: in literary analysis of the Homeric epics and Greek
narrative the term employed is "ring composition" and indeed it is a sort
of chiasmus whereby introductory conception and its sequential elements are
reversed so that the concluding item corresponds to the initial item. If
this is so (and I'm not claiming that it must be so), then it may be that
there's nothing distinctly Semitic in the practice at all. Of course we
ought to be cognizant of the fact that sometimes is overtly mentioned, that
Paul did NOT compose his letters the way a modern writer composes on paper
or another medium where the entire text thus-far completed is visible to
the eyes, but rather DICTATED to an amanuensis and therefore had to
formulate the shape of a larger thought-unit in mind before putting it into
words. I am somewhat inclined to doubt that this is distinctly Semitic.

>If we translate hAPTESQAI as the English "touch" only, we are not
>communicating the connotation of sexual touching that Kevin mentioned. It is
>quite likely that the word here refers to sexual contact, but may be used as
>a metonymy for marriage, since sexual relations outside of marriage is
>called PORNEIA in the following verse. However, if we translate the word as
>"marry" we are losing the focus on sexuality which is part of the meaning of
>the word and a prominent topic in the following verses.
>
>Maybe one option for a translation that tries to communicate the intended
>meaning in English would be "It is good for a man to live in celibacy"?

I think we are in full agreement about the function of the term in the
passage in question. I too would object to "touch" as a supposed equivalent
for hAPTESQAI, and I can't find any regular usage of the verb for "marry"
although it is certainly indicative of sexual union. My original pondering
of the initial question (in the thread) about the significance of the
present tense of the infinitive in its context is what led me to suggest
that hAPTESQAI with genitive here must mean "form an attachment to a woman"
or "become attached to a woman."

Just as another aside, this passage in 1 Cor has always seemed somewhat
similar to the section on sexuality in Lucretius' DE RERUM NATURA toward
the end of Book 4, treats it as a sort of irrational affliction that humans
and other animals are subject to (cf. Peter Brown, _The Body and Society_
for these rather typical attitudes toward sexuality--pagan as well as
Christian--in later antiquity), finally recommends marriage as the
imperfect but practical solution to the moral "problems" posed by sexuality.
-- 

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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