[B-Greek] Mark 1.14
Mark Goodacre
M.S.Goodacre at bham.ac.uk
Thu Nov 6 05:31:05 EST 2003
On 5 Nov 2003 at 6:52, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
> Is it even necessary to characterize this genitive as either
> "subjective" or "objective"? I've argued here before that these are
> translation matters rather than anything inherent in the Greek
> formulation. All the subcategories of adnominal/adjectival genitive
> listed in many grammars are interpretative categories rather than
> descriptive of anything inherent in the Greek text; I sometimes think
> the nearest thing to this in English is the hyphenated form,
> "God-gospel"--every bit as unspecific as the Greek TO EUAGGELION TOU
> QEOU. --
Thanks; point taken about characterizing subjective and objective
genitives. But it's the translation issue that I was trying to get
at by asking whether to read TOU QEOU in Mark 1.14 as an subjective
genitive. So let me rephrase my question in this way: what are the
merits of a translation that understands TO EUAGGELION TOU QUEOU in
Mark 1.14 as "the gospel from God". Contextually, it seems to me
that this is how it may work. Jesus has been declared God's AGAPHTOS
at his baptism, has gone away into the desert to be tested, and now
goes to Galilee to preach the gospel that God has given to him. He
has received the gospel from God, not from anyone else; he is now
God's prophet and is ready to announce the content of that gospel.
The content is "The time is fulfilled; the kingdom of God is at
hand". And the appropriate reaction is "Repent and believe in the
gospel" (Mark 1.15). This time EUAGGELION appears without TOU QEOU --
it is taken for granted that the gospel has come from God. Thus the
content of the gospel is not "God"; God is the source; the content
is "The time is fulfilled; the kingdom of God is at hand." So the
sequence of thought is something like this:
(1) Jesus is anointed by God;
(2) Jesus receives the gospel from God
(3) Jesus preaches that gospel
(4) The content of that gospel is that the kingdom of God is at hand
(5) The appropriate reaction to that gospel is to repent and believe
it.
Mark
-----------------------------
Dr Mark Goodacre mailto:M.S.Goodacre at bham.ac.uk
Graduate Institute for Theology & Religion
Dept of Theology
University of Birmingham
Elmfield House, Bristol Road tel.+44 121 414 7512
Birmingham B29 6LQ UK fax: +44 121 415 8376
http://www.theology.bham.ac.uk/goodacre
http://NTGateway.com
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