[B-Greek] Phil.1:22-23
Mike Sangrey
msangrey at BlueFeltHat.org
Wed Mar 19 12:36:24 EST 2003
On Tue, 2003-03-18 at 06:34, One of the McKays wrote:
> Bruce, Peter O'Brien in NIGT Commentary on Philippians, p. 124 says,
> commenting on verse 22,
> "At this point Paul's language becomes somewhat obscure, and the grammar
> reflects the conflict of feeling in his mind. ... The rather disjointed
> sentences express this hesitation, even though the general sense is clear
> enough.
Hi David, hope things are going well with you.
The structure is disjointed and obscure to us; it wasn't to Paul, nor
the original audience. The structure is chiastic, and therefore,
specially chosen to convey the meaning. That is, just like every other
form, whether it be a word, or a particular rhetorical device like a
`letter' (ie mail), or something in between, form triggers meaning. So
here, instead of seeing a disjointed text from our Western, modern
viewpoint, the form, as seen from the original audience's viewpoint, is
very highly structured.
The first clause (vs 21) serves as a heading to the chiasmus, kind of a
dramatic lead in. We wouldn't say a web page, with a heading along the
left side, in bold, is evidence of disjointed text. In this case, this
is a form we are use to and therefore we don't say, "Hey, that's
disjointed." It's somewhat the same thing here.
Here's the structure as I see it, I'll abbreviate to make it a little
more obvious. Notice the parallel nature of it:
Live is Christ; die is better
my living benefits me
Which is better?; I'm torn in two
I long to be with Christ
That would be better for me
but my living benefits you
Notice the center point, that's the height of the emotion. Paul
longs to be with his Christ.
The interesting thing to me is the structure forces three points to be
conveyed:
1. Christ, being central in the text, is the most important.
2. The value of the Philippians is balanced chiastically with
Paul himself; however, the meaning of the words and clauses
forces the reader to conclude that the Philippians are viewed
by Paul as more important.
3. And so, Paul views himself as the least important of the
three groups.
It's not disjoint or obscure; it's quite intelligent, and, in fact,
elegant.
This positive value assessment of others is characteristic of the entire
Philippian letter, BTW. See 1:9-10 for what I think is the thematic
statement of the letter.
--
Mike Sangrey
msangrey at BlueFeltHat.org
Landisburg, Pa.
"The first one last wins."
"A net of highly cohesive details reveals the truth."
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