[B-Greek] Gal. 1:7 and METASTREFW
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Aug 26 13:13:51 EDT 2003
At 10:49 AM -0500 8/26/03, Eric Weiss wrote:
>... KAI QELONTES METASTREYAI TO EUAGGELION TOU CRISTOU.
>
>Since etymologically STREFW has the sense of turn/turn back, and some of
>the definitions of METASTREFW in the LSJ Lexicon have a sense of turning
>around, is it possible that in this passage Paul is hinting that those
>troubling the Galatians are wanting to "turn them back" to a
>Jewish/law-based form of religion, as opposed to merely "distort" the
>Gospel (the NASB translation of METASTREYAI here)?
That seems unlikely, inasmuch as the object of METASTREYAI is TO EUAGGELION
TOU CRISTOU. Most essentially the root sense of STREFW is "make go around,
turn (in a circular direction)." I think therefore that the sense here must
be "turn the gospel of Christ around" or "twist (it) out of alignment"--and
that is precisely the sense of "distort" (the Latin equivalent of STREFW
being TORQUEO/TORTUS-a-um).
--
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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