[B-Greek] Col. 1:13a causal pronoun FOLLOW Up2

Dr Dale M Wheeler dalemw at multnomah.edu
Thu Apr 15 20:38:18 EDT 2004


Mitch Larramore <mitchlarramore at yahoo.com> wrote:


>Getting back to my original question:
>
>Col 1...
>
>12
>EUCARISTOUNTES TWi PATRI TWi hIKANWSANTI hUMAS EIS THN
>MERIDA TOU KLHROU TWN hAGIWN EN TWi FWTI
>13
>hOS ERRUSATO hHMAS EK THS EXOUSIAS TOU SKOTOUS KAI
>METESTHSEN EIS THN BASILEIAN TOU hUIOU THS AGAPHS
>AUTOU
>
>
>An adverbial participle/clause can create a causal
>relationship between these two verse, "because he
>rescued us..." Can a relative clause (as we have here
>with hOS) be the semantic equivalent of an adverbial
>clause? In my thinking, a relative pronoun creates a
>clause that functions as an adjective.

The answer, I believe is, yes.  But what you are dealing with is the 
semantic and not the strictly grammatical level.  Relative Pronouns, along 
with certain other constructions (asyndeton, apposition, rhetorical 
questions, etc.) are generally, as far as the semantic development of an 
argument in a passage goes, semantically neutral.  They can be just 
adjectival, ie., just giving further information about the item they refer 
back to or to break arguments into subunits (eg., Eph 1:7-11).  But then 
can also be used to indicate argument development (means, manner, purpose, 
result, reason, condition, concession) in a passage.  In the passage you 
mention--which also applies to other NT hymns which exhibit traits of OT 
hymns, the relative pronouns are normally used to indicate further reasons 
to praise God.


**************************************************************************
Dale M. Wheeler, Ph.D.
Asst. Prof., Biblical Languages/Bible  Multnomah Bible College
8435 NE Glisan Street                       Portland, OR  97220
V: 503-251-6416    F:503-251-6478     E: dalemw at multnomah.edu
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