[B-Greek] Sense of EIS in Eph 1:19
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Apr 10 20:14:58 EDT 2003
At 11:37 AM -0700 4/10/03, Dr. Ralph F. Wilson wrote:
>I am trying to get the sense of the participle EIS in Ephesians 1:19, in the
>phrase THS DUNAMEWS AUTOU EIS hHMAS. Danker (BDAG 290, 4g) cites this verse
>as an example of the preposition "used as the dative, especially the dative
>of advantage, but also = for in general."
>
>Just what is the sense of EIS in this passage?
>= for, on behalf of?
>= in, into, within?
>or is it pretty hard to be certain?
>
>Marcus Barth translates it as "his power over us believers" which seems to
>miss the characteristic sense of EIS.
One really ought to see the larger context: KAI TI TO hUPERBALLON MEGEQOS
THS DUNAMEWS AUTOU EIS hHMAS TOUS PISTEUONTAS KATA THN ENERGEIAN TOU
KRATOUS THS ISCUOS AUTOU.
This is part of that awesome string of genitives dependent upon other
genitives that so characterizes this section of Ephesians. I think I would
understand this as a circumlocution for "what exceedingly great things He
is able (to do) FOR US in terms of the working of his mighty power." That
is to say, EIS hHMAS is indeed equivalent to hHMIN; Hellenistic Greek shows
the gradual movement away from use of the dative to use of prepositions
PROS and EIS with nouns and pronouns; that accounts for the very common
equivalents of LEGEI AUTWi and LEGEI PROS AUTON. In Eph 1:19 I think the
difficulty is in making EIS hHMAS depend directly upon DUNAMIS: it's not
really "power for us" or "power unto us" so much as "power to do (things)
for us."
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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