Ephesians 6:9 first part

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Oct 2 19:26:25 EDT 2002


Forwarded for George Somsel <Polycarp66 at aol.com>:
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 18:23:37 EDT

In a message dated 10/2/2002 4:56:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
waldoslusher at yahoo.com writes:

>KAI hOI KURIOI, TA AUTA POIEITE PROS AUTOUS, ANIENTES
>THN APEILHN,
>
>I realize we have little context here, but what do you
>think APEILHN refers to? Does the THN indicate that
>the original readers were probably aware of a specific
>issue being addressed?
>


I would think that this is a correct assumption.  There are a number of
uses for the article in Greek.  It can turn nearly any part of speech into
a noun.  It can function as a pronoun.  What we have here, however, is the
use of the article with a substantive.  It can refer back to something
previously mentioned (which is not what happens here).  It can point to
someone or something present (not here).  It can indicate a superlative (I
don't think there is anything to particularly indicate Paul is referring to
any special character of the "threatening".  It also can refer to a
well-known object -- which is what I think we have here.   Something like
"ditch the verbal abuse".  I would assume that this would be a part of the
general practice of masters with slaves.

gfsomsel



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