[B-Greek] ASQENESTERWi in 1Peter 3

Mark Wilson emory2oo2 at hotmail.com
Wed May 14 17:52:12 EDT 2003


Waldo:

You asked:
-------
>Does anyone have any ideas as to how ASQENHS fits this
>context? Is TIMH given because of this weakness of the
>wife? I do not really follow the connection to
>rendering TIMH because of ASQENHS. Are there other
>nuances of ASQENHS that might work better than
>weakness?
--------

After doing some research on ASQENHS at Perseus, I decided to send a 
suggested different translation to the NET Bible committee for their next 
printing.

Beginning with a hunch, what I found was that my hunch was not that 
farfetched. Behind the idea of "being weak" is the attendant idea of being 
"vulnerable." I found this to be the case in many of the texts I checked.

You will find that cities that have been reduced to "weakness" after losing 
a battle, are not just weakened, but become vulnerable to further attacks. 
ASQENHS is used of a child. I can think of few descriptions that better fit 
a child than one of being vulnerable. They are one of the most vulnerable in 
society.

I took this "root" idea of "vulnerability" and applied it to a woman. It 
seems obvious to me that vulnerable can be both viewed negatively or 
positively. I took the positive aspect and applied it to the wife of which 
Peter speaks.

Give honor to the wife, who is the more vulnerable partner.

I don't think Peter is saying that we ought to give honor to the wife 
because we can lift a bigger rock than she can. Rather, I think he is 
referring to a feminine, godly vulnerability that is so attractive to the 
male. It's that beautiful quality of a wife that the husband is graced to 
protect.

I think that to some extent, this is the reason the serpent approached the 
woman, not the man in the garden of Eden. She was the more vulnerable. But I 
do not mean vulnerable in the sense of being gullable or stupid. Rather I am 
referring to a feminine vulnerability that women possess, and this 
vulnerability is an inherent part of the female soul.

I realize this may seem like quite an exaggeration on the surface, and a bit 
much for a brief lexical study, but I have done further research. I did 
offer to the NET Bible committee to provide far more data than I orginally 
did. But I feel well within bounds of the semantics of ASQENHS to offer the 
translation: the more vulnerable partner.

My thoughts,

Mark Wilson

_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail




More information about the B-Greek mailing list