ZHLOUTE (I Cor 12:31)
Steven Lo Vullo
slovullo at mac.com
Sun Nov 3 05:40:54 EST 2002
Greetings again, Jesse:
Sorry it took so long to respond. I started my response earlier in the
day and got sidetracked.
On Friday, November 1, 2002, at 12:20 PM, Jesse Joel Bartz wrote:
> Thank you, Steve, for your quick reply.
> I have another question that touches upon the ZHLOUTE question. Is
> there
> any particular reason that our English translations consistently
> translate
> both PNEUMATIKA and CARISMATA (in their various forms) as "spiritual
> gifts" or "gifts"?
What you seem to be interested in here is whether TA PNEUMATIKA has a
broader or more restricted meaning. While I think there are good
arguments for both views, I should state at the outset that I don't
think this particular detail in any way affects my contention that
ZHLOUTE in 12.31 should be taken as an imperative. The reasons for this
will become clear shortly. I should also note that the issue of whether
TA PNEUMATIKA means specifically "spiritual gifts" or more generally
"spiritual things" was discussed at some length on the list a while
ago. I don't remember exactly when this was, but you can probably find
the thread by searching the archives.
As you have noted, the English translations almost universally
translate TA PNEUMATIKA as "spiritual gifts." The only exception among
the 13 translations at my disposal is the rendering "the special
abilities the Spirit gives" (NLT).
While I can't speak for the translators of any particular version,
allow me to offer one reason why translators might render TA PNEUMATIKA
as "spiritual gifts" in 1 Corinthians 14.1. The text reads, ZHLOUTE DE
TA PNEUMATIKA, MALLON DE hINA PROFHTEUHTE. In the second clause we must
understand an elliptical ZHLOUTE. Thus, "and desire TA PNEUMATIKA, but
especially [desire] that you may prophesy." Prophecy, a spiritual gift,
is a subset of the larger category TA PNEUMATIKA. MALLON marks the
desire for prophecy as a special pursuit within the broader pursuit of
TA PNEUMATIKA. So it seems natural to take TA PNEUMATIKA as the broader
category of which prophecy is a subset. Since prophecy is a spiritual
gift, TA PNEUMATIKA can plausibly be understood as "spiritual gifts."
> These questions have been born out of a recent study that I have done
> through the book of I Corinthians. As I studied through chapter 12, it
> seemed to me that Paul wanted to make several thiongs clear regarding
> the
> gifts. One thing was that the gifts were sovereignly bestowed by the
> Holy
> Spirit for the good of the body, the church (12:7). It also seemed that
> Paul spoke against the attitude of one member wanting to have another
> gift
> of prominence since God had placed the various members into the body
> as He
> pleased (12:12-27). He did list the gifts seemingly in order of
> importance, but still when I got to verse 31, it didn't seem to make
> sense. Why was Paul telling them to desire certain gifts at all when
> God
> Himself gave the gifts for the good of the body, and Paul had seemingly
> already spoke against such a desire? Also confusing to me was how the
> first sentence of 12:31 would be fused with the second if ZHLOUTE was
> indeed imperative. The two don't seem to "gel" very well.
I will refrain from answering the question about how Paul can teach
God's sovereignty in the distribution of spiritual gifts and yet exhort
the Corinthians to eagerly desire the greater gifts, since this
doubtless crosses over into theological explanations that are beyond
the scope of B-Greek. I will, though, refer you to D.A. Carson's book
_Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12-14_,
pp. 41f.
In addition, I would like to make an observation from the text that
indicates the necessity of answering this question to your own
satisfaction whether or not you take ZHLOUTE as indicative in 12.31.
You still have the problem of 14.1 and 14.39. In each case the
Corinthians are exhorted to seek prophecy:
14.1 ZHLOUTE DE TA PNEUMATIKA, MALLON DE hINA PROFHTEUHTE
14.39 ZHLOUTE TO PROFHTEUEIN
I find the efforts of those who propose the indicative in these texts
entirely unconvincing and indeed highly subjective. So, in my opinion,
in the end you will still have to wrestle with this problem. Taking
ZHLOUTE as indicative in 12.31 in the end does not provide the solution.
As for the order of importance you concede, I will deal with that
below. I will also deal below with whether or not the two clauses "gel"
if ZHLOUTE is taken as imperative. The fact is that the indicative view
is the more awkward of the two, which I think is recognized even by
those who hold this view, since they are forced to posit a sense of KAI
that is exceedingly rare.
> It seemed to me that perhaps Paul was saying to the Corinthians, "You
> desire the showy gifts for personal gain, but I will show you the more
> excellent way of using them for love."
There are two problems here. The first is the idea that TA MEIZONA
means something like "more showy." Since you seem to concede above that
there is a ranking of gifts in v. 28 (indeed, PRWTON ... DEUTERON ...
TRITON ... EPEITA ... EPEITA are clearly not temporal, but mark order
of importance), it seems much more natural in the immediate context to
understand TA MEIZONA as "greater" or "more important." This would
demand the imperative, since it is obvious from ch. 14 that the
Corinthians were NOT seeking the more important gifts, but rather the
least of those mentioned in the list. And since "kinds of tongues"
comes last in the list in v. 28, while prophets are listed near the
top, second only to apostles, we might well expect that if TA MEIZONA
indeed means "more important," Paul probably has prophecy in mind as
one of these "more important" gifts. This seems confirmed in the
resumption of the argument in 14.1, where the Corinthians are indeed
exhorted to especially desire prophecy, and in 14.5, where Paul wishes
especially that they might prophesy and says that the one who
prophesies is "greater" (MEIZWN) than the one who speaks in tongues
(unless there is an interpreter). Since in the resumption of Paul's
argument in ch. 14 we have a clear use of MEIZWN to mean "greater," it
seems to me that the burden of proof falls squarely on the shoulders of
those who would propose the meaning "more showy" in 12.31. The uses of
MALLON in 14.1, 5 should also not be overlooked, since they also
function to distinguish prophecy as one of the "greater" gifts.
The second problem is in the use of "but" to translate KAI. This is, I
think, quite revealing of the argument for the indicative as a whole,
since an exceedingly unlikely use of KAI as a strong adversative is
virtually required in order for this understanding to have any degree
of credibility at all. However, this seems completely arbitrary and
need-based, since of the over 9000 occurrences of KAI in the NT, it
only very rarely exhibits any adversative force, and even then it seems
to be used more for stylistic reasons than anything else. It is not
enough to say that a word may *possibly* mean something; we must decide
what it *most probably* means. And KAI most probably means "and." This
fits unobtrusively with the imperative view, while the rendering "but"
seems to indicate that even proponents of the indicative view are aware
of the awkwardness of it. While I would never base an entire argument
on what an author *could* have said, one has to wonder why Paul would
not have used a clear adversative if this was what he had in mind,
especially in light of the identical form of indicative and imperative.
While a clear adversative would lend weight to the indicative
interpretation (though not prove it), KAI seems to strongly favor the
imperative. Again the burden of proof falls on those who hold to the
indicative view. They must produce strong reasons for taking KAI in
such an unusual sense.
> You mentioned the use of ZHLOUTE in 14:1 and the internal evidence of
> that
> particular passage which would render the term in the imperative. You
> also
> mentioned the correlation between the two passages (12:31 & 14:1).
> This is
> what prompted my second inquiry into the matter. Of course, in 12:31
> the
> term translated as "gifts" is CARISMATA. The term used in 14:1 is
> PNEUMATIKA. English translations will translate CARISMATA as "spiritual
> gifts". Yet many English translations render PNEUMATIKA as "spiritual
> gifts" with "gifts" in italics, generally denoting a word that is not
> in
> the original but is placed in the English text for readability, among
> other things.
It has often been noted that 1 Corinthians 13 is something of a
digression (though an important and pertinent one), and that ch. 14
picks up the argument of ch. 12. From the end of ch. 12 to the
beginning of ch. 14 (omitting ch. 13 for the moment) criteria is
developed for *ranking* spiritual gifts in order of their potential for
building up the church, while the emphasis in ch 13 *transcends* the
spiritual gifts and puts them in perspective. The two arguments are not
antithetical but complementary, and both were necessary in the
historical context. The significance of this is that when we look at
the structure of this section of the letter, it becomes apparent that
ZHLOUTE in 14.1 is resumptive of the thought in 12.31, where we also
find ZHLOUTE. In 12.31 the Corinthians are exhorted to eagerly desire
the greater gifts, and when the argument is resumed, they are exhorted
to eagerly desire TA PNEUMATIKA, of which prophecy is singled out for
special pursuit, no doubt because it is an example of one of these
greater gifts Paul exhorted the Corinthians to eagerly desire in 12.31.
Indeed it is *the* example of the greater gifts that he wishes to
contrast with glossolalia in ch. 14. So I don't think the issue of
whether TA PNEUMATIKA means specifically "spiritual gifts" or more
generally "spiritual things" has any bearing on the issue of whether
ZHLOUTE in 12.31 is indicative or imperative, since one way or the
other TA PNEUMATIKA must in this context include spiritual gifts. It's
not as though Paul has in ch. 14 picked up an entirely different topic;
he is still discussing the ranking of spiritual gifts. It's just that
he has narrowed the ranking to two gifts in particular, prophecy and
tongues, and arguing that prophecy is more important for the
edification of the church.
I think it is also important to note that ZHLOUTE is used a third time
in the imperative in 14.39: hWSTE, ADELFOI [MOU], ZHLOUTE TO
PROFHTEUEIN KAI TO LALEIN MH KWLUETE GLWSSAIS. This is the conclusion
of his discussion of the importance of prophecy vis-a-vis tongues.
While prophesy is to be eagerly desired because of its greater
usefulness for the edification of the church, tongues, while not
classed as one of the greater gifts like prophecy, are nevertheless not
to be forbidden. In light of all this, I don't think there can be any
doubt that Paul wants the Corinthians to eagerly desire the greater
spiritual gifts, and especially prophecy.
Some have sought to diminish the force of these observations by
appealing to the fact that the direct objects of ZHLOUTE in 12.31 and
14.1 are different (TA CARISMATA vs. TA PNEUMATICA). One of the
problems here is that in 14.12, in a construction that includes a
cognate of ZHLOUTE and is unambiguously indicative, the objective
genitive is "spiritual things" (PNEUMATWN, cognate of PNEUMATIKA in
14.1), not "gifts" (CHARISMATWN, used in 12.31). So arguing indicative
or imperative on the basis of the distinctive direct objects is dubious
at best.
Others have tried to argue that ZHLOUTE even in 14.1 should be taken as
indicative, insisting that the first clause is an imperative from Paul
while the second clause is a "quote" from the Corinthians. The
arguments for this position are so utterly arbitrary and subjective, so
dependent on semantical gymnastics, that I won't even mention them
here. This position seems to be geared more towards shoring up the
indicative view of ZHLOUTE in 12.31 than a straightforward reading of
14.1. (Though appropriate in certain well-defined contexts, it seems to
me that the "quotation" argument is a convenient escape hatch that is
being used more and more to bolster questionable interpretations within
this letter. If this multiplication of "quotations" keeps up, I suppose
at some point we can expect that someone will propose that the whole
letter is nothing more than an anthology of Corinthian quotations.)
> What I am now wondering is whether CARISMATA refers to the actual
> gifts,
> while PNEUMATIKA refers to the spiritual in general, of which the
> spiritual gifts would be but a part.
Is TA PNEUMATIKA a broader category than TA CARISMATA? Perhaps. But it
just may be that one emphasizes the grace of God in the bestowal of the
ability, while the other indicates the spiritual ability itself or the
Spirit's role in the distribution of the ability (cf. 12.7ff. and the
NLT translation of 14.1 mentioned earlier). I don't think this question
has any bearing on the indicative/imperative debate, though.
============
Steven R. Lo Vullo
Madison, WI
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