[B-Greek] Heb 6:10 - KAI TOU KOPOU THS AGAPHN HN ENEDEIXASQE
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Aug 11 06:37:41 EDT 2003
At 3:44 AM -0300 8/11/03, Erich Vaughan Burton wrote:
>Heb 6:10 - KAI TOU KOPOU THS AGAPHN HN ENEDEIXASQE
>
>I would like to know why the relative pronoun "HN" in this passage is
>feminine.
>
>Since it is feminine it can only refer to "AGAPHN" and not "KOPOU" or "ERGOU"
>
> which are masculine.
>
>If I said this in english, "[thy] work of love which you have shown",
>
>I would think it was the "WORK" that the relative pronoun was refering to.
I don't know where you're getting your text. NA27/UBS4 reads, OU GAR ADIKOS
hO QEOS EPILAQESQAI TOU ERGOU hUMWN KAI THS AGAPHS hHS ENEDEIXASQE EIS TO
ONOMA AUTOU; here there is no KOPOU at all and the relative pronoun is hHS
which is in agreement with AGAPHS in number and gender and is genitive by
attraction to the case of the antecedent.
The Majority Text (and TR as well) does have your reading, KAI TOU KOPOU
THS AGAPHS but the relative pronoun following it here too is hHS, not hHN,
and here too I would understand it as referring to AGAPHS and being
genitive by attraction to the case of the antecedent.
>This raises three questions:
>
>1. Am I missing something?
probably a reliable text.
>2. Is it because the emphasis is upon the "LOVE" that was shown and not
>the "WORK"?
Essentially yes, but I think that in any case it is the AGAPH which has
been demonstrated, not so much the KOPOS expended.
>3. Does the Greek langauge allow for the distinction of relative pronouns
>in a way that the English language does not? I'm not referring to the
>fact that the relative pronoun can change in case, gender, number, but in
>the above passage the pronoun seems to be relative to adjective of the
>noun rather than the noun itself.
The only adjective in this passage is ADIKOS at the outset; if you read
KOPOU, that's a noun and it's in the genitive because it is a complement of
EPILAQESQAI.
--
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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