The opening of 1 Peter
Mike Sangrey
msangrey at BlueFeltHat.org
Fri May 17 20:44:32 EDT 2002
On Fri, 2002-05-17 at 14:13, waldo slusher wrote:
> PETROS APOSTOLOS IHSOU CRISTOU, EKLEKTOIS PAREPIDHMOIS
> DIASPORAS PONTOU, etc........
>
> KATA PROGNWSIN QEOU PATROS, EN hAGIASMWi PNEUMATOS,
> EIS hUPAKOHN KAI hRANTISMON hAIMATOS IHSOU CRISTOU
>
> Here is my question... what do all these prepositions
> modify?
>
> KATA PROGNWSIN
> EN hAGIASMWi PNEUMATOS
> EIS hUPAKOHN
> [EIS} hRANTISMON
Hmmmmmmm...how about a totally different way of looking at it? Allow me
to think out loud, sort of green lighting here. What if we think of the
opening of the letter like this:
From: Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ;
To: The elect, the strangers--the ones scattered in Pontus,
Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia;
Subject: What God the Father knew beforehand specifically about
the Spirit's sanctifying power and how that concerns
our obedience and the sprinkling of (ie. purification by)
the blood (ie the death) of Jesus Christ.
Salutation: May grace and peace increase for you.
In other words, to answer your question about what the prepositions
modify: they state (modify?) the subject of the letter.
A couple of notes regarding the freely rendered prepositions (if there
is anything that does NOT map one-for-one between languages, it's the
prepositions!):
* KATA...I think it was Carl who mentioned that when he sees
KATA he thinks about a river winding its way down to its
mouth. That seems an appropriate preposition to state the
subject, or the topic, of a letter. The picture is that the
development of the letter would move the reader down toward
this particular subject. Or you can think of it as "this
letter is developed ACCORDING TO this topic."
* EN... See Louw & Nida (L&N) 89.5 "with regard to
(specification)" So, Peter is going to deal with God's
foreknowledge as it specifically relates to sanctification.
* EIS... See L&N 90.23 "with reference to" They cite Acts 2:5
"for David spoke concerning him" and Rom. 16:19 "I want you to
be wise concerning what is good." I think there's an element
of `goal' in mind, too. In other words, Peter will be laying
some ground work, but ultimately, this topic is what he wants
to get to.
So, the topic is about God's foreknowledge as it specifically relates to
sanctification, but the key piece of information, the point the reader
needs to get to is an understanding of how Jesus' death relates to this.
Now, note the following points somewhat in parallel to the above three
bullets:
* 1 Pet. 1:3-12--it is about what God has done and that he told
the prophets about it. So then, it's God who did it and he
knew about it before hand and indeed, purposed to carry out
exactly what he determined to do. This matches up with
PROGNOSIS.
* 1 Pet. 1:13-2:10--Starts with DIO (cf L&N, 89.47, "relatively
emphatic marker of result, usually denoting the fact that the
inference is self-evident") so (and for other reasons, too)
this is a fairly large sectional break. What's this section
about? If you do a quick read through it I think you'll
notice that there's a fair amount of emphasis on the believer
being purified by God. It ends with Peter saying that we've
become a royal priesthood. In other words, it syncs with
sanctification in the sense of our being "set apart for a holy
use."
* 1 Pet. 2:11-4:11. I can't develop such a large section in
just one bullet point; however, note the twin topics of
obedience in specific social roles and how the death of Jesus
is absolutely vital for this obedience to occur. Otherwise we
won't be able to deal successfully with the SARC. It's
interesting to me how the explanation of the death of the
Christ is intimately woven into very practical instruction
regarding certain social roles. This i mirrored in the way
the opening statement is worded: EIS hUPAKOHN KAI hRANTISMON
hAIMATOS IHSOU CRISTOU
Also, note that there isn't a nice neat, strictly developed point 1,
point 2, point 3. There's some cyclic or iterative development of the
points. This makes sense to me since the topic really needs to hang
together as a unit.
Well, just thinking outside the box. Read through 1 Peter a few times
with the above topic in mind (or something similar) and see what you
think.
--
Mike Sangrey
msangrey at BlueFeltHat.org
Landisburg, Pa.
"The first one last wins."
"A net of highly cohesive details reveals the truth."
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