[B-Greek] use of feminine in Eph 2:11

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Oct 30 06:18:43 EST 2003


At 10:05 PM -0500 10/29/03, Suedaleg at aol.com wrote:
>Sirs:
>
>I have been workin through Paul's letter to the Ephesians and have a question
>on somthing I thing is odd.
>
>Ephesians 2:11 reads in part ... hOI LEGOMENOI AKROBUSTIA hUPO THS LEGOMENHS
>PERITOMHS EN SARKI CEIROPOIHTOU
>
>THe participle following hUPO is feminine singular.  From the English I had
>always assumed it would be masculine plural.  What is the significance here of
>the feminine?  Are there other examples of this usage?

AKROBUSTIA is indeed feminine singular; in this instance it functions as a
predicate nominative: "those who are called uncircumcision." This is not a
problem; although it's not all that frequent, it does happen that a
singular noun may be used to refer to a group of things or persons
collectively;in this instance "uncircumcision" is equivalent to a
substantive, "the uncircumcised."

>By the way, also, how would you translate the last word CEIRPOIHTOU in this
>sentance?

"done by hand" or "hand-wrought" (but that's pretty archaic-sounding).
Somewhat better English is NET's "performed by hand."
-- 

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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