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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