[B-Greek] Gal 4:8: TOIS MH OUSIN QEIOS

Barry nebarry at verizon.net
Sun Apr 25 21:30:13 EDT 2004


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <moon at mail.sogang.ac.kr>
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2004 9:02 PM
Subject: [B-Greek] Gal 4:8: TOIS MH OUSIN QEIOS



Below:

> (1) In this context, TOIS MH OUSIN QEIOS refer to other gods they were
serving.
>     Then, it implies that TW WN QEOIS would refer to Yaweh, the only true god.
>     Then it implies that QEIOS is a property that can be attributed only to
>     Yaweh the only true god, not to other gods.
>
>     But the above interpretation of word QEIOS seems to be againt the common
>     usage of word QEIOS, which would be used to describe gods less than Yaweh
>     the only true god.
>
>     I wonder if TOIS MH OUSIN QEOS would better serve Paul's purpose here, or
>     my understanding of QEIOS is wrong.

It would only serve Paul's purpose better if Paul did not know Greek.  You have
misread and mistransliterated the word: it is QEOIS, the dative plural of QEOS,
precisely the word you are seeking (not the adjective QEIOS, which would make no
sense grammatically).  Note that the article, which modifies QEOIS, is also
dative plural.


> (2) EIDOTES QEON, GNONTES QEON:
>
>    The context certainly implies that they came to know Yaweh, the only
>    true god, the god of Jesus Christ, the god of Abraham and Issac and Jacob.
>    But I wonder why Paul did not write TON QEON in this context. I searched
>    for QEON in NT, and found out 150 matches.  I searched for the cases
>    where QEON is used as the direct object of a verb. I excluded PP + QEON
>    (It is well known
>    that after prepositions, nouns are typically without articles). Also I
>    excluded the cases where QEON is used as a predicate noun (e.g. John 10.33,
>    2. Thess 2.4). In most of the remaining cases, TON QEON is used rather than
QEON.

 With proper names and titles, the article is optional, though it appears with
God (the Father) in regular usage (and is probably used more frequently with all
names and titles than not, though I've never confirmed that statistically).
However, I wonder if the lack of the article here tends to de-emphasize the noun
to a certain extent call attention to the actions of knowing?  In other words,
the point is not so much God as a person as knowing God as a fact or
principle...

Barry

A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:
There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
  --Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism"

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