Galatians 2:16 EAN MH

Steven Lo Vullo slovullo at mac.com
Fri Mar 29 17:10:52 EST 2002


on 3/29/02 3:28 PM, Steven Lo Vullo at slovullo at mac.com wrote:

> The context, as you seem to concede in your above comments, clearly does not
> support your rendering, "A man will not be justified by the works of the law
> unless it is on the basis of faith in Christ." Indeed, the rest of this very
> sentence rules out any such idea: KAI hHMEIS EIS CRISTON IHSOUN
> EPISTEUSAMEN, hINA DIKAIWQWMEN EK PISTEWS CRISTOU KAI *OUK* EX ERGWN NOMOU,
> hOTI EX ERGWN NOMOU *OU* DIKAIWQHSETAI *PASA* SARX. Yet you seem to indicate
> that a subordinate clause MUST modify the entire matrix clause. It seems to
> me that this is a case of a presuppositional rule overriding the evidence,
> rather than the evidence supporting the rule. If the syntactical evidence
> does not neatly fit the rule, I think the rule should, at the very least, be
> revised. Not only that, but, if we concede that there is an ellipsis that
> needs to be filled (and I'm not sure there is), there is more than one way
> to understand how and where it should be filled. The following makes more
> sense in the context:
> 
> OU DIKAIOUTAI ANQRWPOS EX ERGWN NOMOU
> 
> [OU DIKAIOUTAI ANQRWPOS] EAN MH DIA PISTEWS IHSOU CRISTOU
> 
> This is in keeping with the apparently causal sense of the particpial clause
> and its relationship to the main verb (EPISTEUSAMEN) and the purpose (hINA)
> and causal (hOTI) clauses that further modify it.

Just a clarification of the above. DIKAIOUTAI must also be understood in the
conditional clause (EAN MH [DIKAIOUTAI] DIA PISTEWS IHSOU CRISTOU). I wasn't
suggesting that the ellipsis I propose above should take the place of this
one, only that it could be inferred in order to understand the proper
relationship of the conditional clause.
============

Steven Lo Vullo
Madison, WI
slovullo at mac.com





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