[B-Greek] DIKAIOUMENOI in Romans 3:24
David & Sharon Mills
dmills at inebraska.com
Wed Oct 29 16:57:23 EST 2003
Thanks, Carl. Your message and the pages you cited in Wallace were
especially helpful.
David R. Mills
Bellevue Church of Christ
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
To: "David & Sharon Mills" <dmills at inebraska.com>
Cc: "Steven Lo Vullo" <slovullo at mac.com>; "Biblical Greek"
<b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 8:37 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] DIKAIOUMENOI in Romans 3:24
> At 8:04 AM -0600 10/29/03, David & Sharon Mills wrote:
> >Steven, I appreciate your answer, and I think I understand the passage as
> >you do. But, I am troubled because what I read is not how I would expect
> >that understanding to be expressed. Let me clarify my question. Why did
> >Paul use the participle DIKAIOUMENOI, instead of a finite verb? My
English
> >mind expects two _finite verbs_ : "There is no difference. For all
people
> >(whether Jew or Gentile) have sinned ..., and all people (whether Jew or
> >Gentile) are justified freely ...." If I try to force my English
patterns
> >into Greek, I might expect the two finite verbs in a KAI ... KAI ...
> >construction ("both / and," or "not only / but also"), or even the first
as
> >a participle ("For all having sinned ... are justified freely ...") since
> >Paul has already established the first point and is now turning to the
> >second. So, when I see DIKAIOUMENOI, I am surprised and wonder what
point I
> >am missing.
>
> I am inclined to think that this may be more a translation problem,namely,
> how best to convey the force of the circumstantial participle
DIKAIOUMENOI.
> Let's get the whole sentence in view:
>
> Rom 3:23 PANTES GAR hHMARTON KAI hUSTEROUNTAI THS DOXHS TOU QEOU 24
> DIKAIOUMENOI DWREAN THi AUTOU CARITI DIA THS APOLUTRWSEWS THS EN CRISTWi
> IHSOU ... There's a relative clause following, but what's cited does
> comprise the entire grammatical core: the subject is PANTES, the compound
> predicate is constituted by the two verbs hHMARTON and hUSTEROUNTAI, and
> these are followed by the circumstantial participial phrase DIKAIOUMENOI
> ... EN CRISTWi IHSOU. Circumstantial participles tend to precede the main
> verbs if they simply explain time or circumstances governing the action of
> those verbs; it's relatively rare that circumstantial participles FOLLOW
> the verbs, and when they do, they tend to indicate purpose or result. My
> inclination, if I were translating Rom 3:24 literally would be to write,
> "and so are made righteous as a gift by his grace ..." You might want to
> consult Wallace, GGBB, pp. 636-639.
>
> I still think this is more a translation problem, a problem of expecting
> the Greek formulation to follow a pattern more normal to English. For what
> it's worth, I still recall my astonishment at discovering that Greek
> writers may express the key point of a sentence in a participle rather
than
> in the finite verb, but it's not all that uncommon.
>
>
> --
>
> 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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