EN hUMIN in 1 Cor 3.18
Steven R. Lo Vullo
slovullo at mac.com
Sun Nov 24 18:17:07 EST 2002
On Saturday, November 23, 2002, at 02:10 PM, Iver Larsen wrote:
>> 1 Cor 3.18: EI TIS DOKEI SOFOS EINAI EN hUMIN EN TWi AIWNI TOUTWi,
>> MWROS GENESQW, hINA GENHTAI SOFOS.
> 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.)
Thanks, Carl and Iver, for your responses.
I didn't really have any problem with EN hUMIN being construed with
TIS, since there is nothing terribly unusual about this. Nor was I
concerned with the fact that EN hUMIN is separated from TIS by several
words, since this is not really unusual either. What gave me pause,
though, is the fact that EN hUMIN falls smack-dab in the middle of the
indirect discourse. DOKEI (BDAG 1.b, "*think, believe, suppose,
consider*, trans., of subjective opinion") introduces the indirect
discourse expressed by SOFOS EINAI EN hUMIN EN TWi AIWNI TOUTWi. So it
is not the mere separation of EN hUMIN from TIS by three words that
prompted my question, but the fact that EN hUMIN seems more likely to
be part of the object clause than the main clause that introduces it.
I'll have to give this one some more thought.
============
Steven R. Lo Vullo
Madison, WI
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list