[B-Greek] James 4:5 PROS FQONON EPIPOQEI TO PNEUMA hO KATWiKHSEN EN hHMIN

Jonathan Robie jonathan.robie at datadirect.com
Tue Sep 30 13:22:05 EDT 2003


I have spent a lot of time chewing on this:

James 4:5-4:6a: H DOKEITE hOTI KENWS hH GRAFH LEGEI, PROS FQONON EPIPOQEI 
TO PNEUMA hO
KATWiKHSEN EN hHMIN; MEIZONA DE DIDWSI XARIN.

This is hard for me to make sense of, though a few possibilities seem to 
make sense. The New Oxford Commentary suggests that this might be 
interpreted as two separate questions:

   H DOKEITE hOTI KENWS hH GRAFH LEGEI; PROS FQONON EPIPOQEI TO PNEUMA hO
   KATWiKHSEN EN hHMIN; MEIZONA DE DIDWSI XARIN.

This would come out something like, "Or do you think the scripture speaks 
in vain? [do you think that] he placed his spirit in us for jealousy?" I 
have to admit that the reason I like this is simply that I don't think of 
FQONON as something that is associated with God or with the spirit he 
placed in us - but does it seem to fit?

Or is God being presented as a jealous husband here, who will not tolerate 
our adultery (see MOICALIDES in James 4:4)? In this case, though, I don't 
quite understand the role of TO PNEUMA hO KATWiKHSEN EN hHMIN.

Several other translations have been suggested, and I frankly don't know 
quite what some of these translations would mean in English. For instance, 
I can't quite figure out what the KJV "The spirit that dwelleth in us 
lusteth to envy?" means. Is that the same thing as the GNB translation "The 
spirit that God placed in us is filled with fierce desires"?

Help!

Jonathan 




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