EN hUMIN in 1 Cor 3.18

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Sat Nov 23 15:10:23 EST 2002


> 1 Cor 3.18: EI TIS DOKEI SOFOS EINAI EN hUMIN EN TWi AIWNI TOUTWi,
> MWROS GENESQW, hINA GENHTAI SOFOS.
>
> It seems that there are two possible ways to construe EN hUMIN--either
> with TIS or SOFOS. It looks like most English translations opt for the
> former ("anyone among you" or something similar). The only exception I
> know of is the ASV ("If any man thinketh that he is wise among you in
> this world"). It seems to me that the difference is substantial. If
> construed with TIS, the reference would be simply to anyone among them
> who considered himself wise. If construed with SOFOS, the reference
> would be to someone who fancied himself wise among, i.e., in comparison
> with, others in the congregation. This would seem to fit not only the
> immediate, but also the broader context of 1 Corinthians, where the
> exaltation of one above another or of oneself above others is
> prominent. Its position in the sentence would seem to substantiate this
> understanding. DOKEI introduces an object clause expressing indirect
> speech. So EN hUMIN, placed as it is within the object clause, would
> seem more naturally to be part of the indirect speech than part of the
> controlling clause. Converted to direct speech, we would have something
> like, "I consider myself wise among you," or, to loosely paraphrase,
> "Among this lot, I think I'm a standout in the wisdom department." Does
> this sound right?
> ============

I cannot see that there is a substantial difference, but I would take EN
hUMIN with TIS. The function of EN hUMIN seems to be to define the scope to
be the Christians in Corinth that he is writing to. SOFOS is already
qualified by EN TWi AIWNI TOUTWi in order to contrast worldly wisdom with
spiritual wisdom (see next verse). I would consider that as the key point.
If any of you Christians consider yourself wise in the sense of worldly
wisdom, you'd better let go of that kind of wisdom in order to receive the
spiritual wisdom. It is true that one aspect of worldly wisdom that they may
have fallen prey to is to compare oneself with others and strive to be more
important than others.

Carl has mentioned that the older standard construction for "(any)one of
you" was TIS + genitive, but he also mentioned the other form TIS + EK. When
I checked in the GNT, I found 12 occurrences of TIS plus genitive, most of
them in Paul. I found 21 occurrences of TIS + EK and 6 of TIS + EN.
John did not use TIS + genitive, but had one third of the TIS + EK examples.
With the TIS + genitive, the genitive follows immediately after TIS as one
would expect, but with both EK and EN other words may come in between.

Since James uses all three, I'll give some examples from him for comparison:

Js 1:5 EI DE TIS hUMWN LEIPETAI SOFIAS
Js 2:16 EIPHi DE TIS AUTOIS EX hUMWN
Js 5:14 ASQENEI TIS EN hUMIN

I cannot see any significant difference in meaning between "If anyone of you
is sick" and "If anyone among you is sick" and "If anyone is sick among
you".

James also has an example with DOKEI that is somewhat similar to Paul, but
without an EN hUMIN which is implied anyway:

Ja 1:26 EI TIS DOKEI QRHSKOS EINAI... TOUTOU MATAIOS hH QRHSKEIA

There is another example from Paul somewhat similar:

2 Th 3:11 AKOUOMEN GAR TINAS PERIPATOUNTAS EN hUMIN ATAKTWS

Again, I cannot see a significant difference in meaning between "some among
you being idle" and "some being idle among you".

Based on this, I would maintain the exegesis indicated by the English
translations (ASV is obscure because of its extreme literalness) and take EN
hUMIN with TIS. As far as I can see the focus in this verse is not on being
wiser than the others, but on any of the Christians considering themselves
to be worldly wise (and maybe even being proud of it.)

Iver Larsen




More information about the B-Greek mailing list