[B-Greek] Re: B-Greek Digest, Vol 16, Issue 28
moon at mail.sogang.ac.kr
moon at mail.sogang.ac.kr
Mon Apr 26 20:51:14 EDT 2004
Dear Barry,
Thanks for correcting me about QEIOS vs QEOIS.
But still, we can consider significant the fact
that Paul the monotheist considers all the other
"gods" as hOI MH ONTES QEOIS (those who are not gods),
and by implication only Yaweh as hO WN QEOS (the one who is god).
Paul can say PANTA LEGOMENON QEON (all called god)
(2 Thess 2.4), but not PANTA ONTES QEON, it seems.
Let me talk about 2 Thess 2.4 a bit more; it is
interesting.
2 Thess 2.4: hO ANTIKEIMENOS KAI hUPERAIROMENOS
EPI PANTA LEGOMENON QEON hH SEBASMA,
hWSTE AUTON EIS TON NAON TOU QEOU KAQISAI
APODEIKNUNTAI hEAUTON hOTI ESTIN QEOS.
Here the referent of QEON is different from that of QEOS.
He is aginst all those called god. Here god refers to many gods
who are considered so. He sits on the temple of the god claiming that
he is god. Here god refers to one who sits on the temple of the god,
the only true god. the different referents of QEOS seem to be
indicated by the predicates associated with QEOS. In one case,
they are CALLED (LEGOMENON) QEOS, and in the other case,
he claims that he IS (ESTIN) QEOS.
Can we assume that when a monotheist uses the expression ESTIN QEOS,
does he or she always in mind the only true god, at least the quality
equivalent to that of the only true god.
Would it give some hint to the interpertation of QEOS HN hO LOGOS in
John 1.1c?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
About TON QEON vs QEON, see my further question below.
>> 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).
I read from B-greek list that Levinson(?) did not some study about the use of
article with respect proper names from a modern linguistic theory of discourse.
The basic theory is that the use and the non-use of the article with respect
proper names like YESOUS (Jesus) is not arbitrary. Proper names without the article
are used when the persons in question are introduced in a given stage or context
even though they are already introduced in other stages in the same book.
Proper names with the article are used to refer to the persons already in scope.
From what I learn and read about modern discourse theories, I believe that
the above scenario looks quite reasonable.
I have not read any theories about the use of the article with respect to
title-phrases like QEOS. I cannot buy a theory that the use and the nonuse
of the article with respect to title-phrases are arbitrary or purely accidental,
either. In modern discourse theories, the use of the article has to do with
whether entities in question are "in scope" or not in the current course of
discourse. Entities can be in scope basically either by being introduced
previously in the discourse or by being well-known extralinguistically by
those living in the same world. In the case of QEOS, the referent is well-known
extralinguistically. In fact, when QEOS is used as the subject of a sentence,
it is always in the form of hO QEOS (from my search of NT).
When QEOS is used without the article it is always as a predicate
noun describing the nature of something, not as a reference to something.
As I argued above, the quality of QEOS as a predicate noun depends on the
context.
But I have some problem with the cases where QEON without the article
is used as an object of a verb, as in Gal 4.8,9.
Barry offered his hypthesis for its significance. In GNONTES QEON,
QEON is a referential term, not a descriptive term. GNONTES is a descriptive
term, which describes the situation of the subject of the verb.
So, GNONTES QEON cannot mean something like "knowing what god is".
In fact, in Gal 4.9, we have:
NUN DE GNONTES QEON, MALLON DE GNWSQENTES HUPO QEOU.
Because of the parallism of the two clauses, QEON and QEOU should
refer to the same entity. HUPO QEOU can be explained because of the
preposition. But I do not understand QEON. If it is proper name, OK.
But it is not. But Is there some patterns among the cases where
the objective of QEOS is used without the article?
The only cases in NT where QEON without the article is used as the object of a verb:
> >
> > John 1:18: QEON OUDEIS EWRAKEN PWPOTE.
> > 2John 1:9: PAS hO PROAGWN KAIMH MENWN EN TH DIDACH TOU CRISTOU QEON OUK EXEI.
> > Titus 1:16 QEON hOMOLOGOUSIN EIDENAI, TOIS DE ERGOIS ARNOUNTAI.
> > 2 Thess 1:8: DIDONTOS EKDIKHSIN TOIS MH EIDOSIN QEON
> > Gal 4.8,9.
Sincerely
Moon
Moon R. Jung
Associate Professor
Dept of Media Technology
Graduate School of Media Comm
Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea
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