[B-Greek] TA PAQHMATA... TA... ENHRGEITO EN TOIV MELESIN HMWN

George F. Somsel gfsomsel at juno.com
Fri Aug 27 21:59:17 EDT 2004


On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 02:20:56 +0300 Dean Kalmantis <deankal at hol.gr>
writes:
> Hello,
> 
> I am having some trouble with the following text from Ro 7:5:
> 
> TA PAQHMATA TWN AMARTIWN TA DIA TOU NOMOU ENHRGEITO EN TOIV MELESIN 
> 
> HMWN EIS TO KARPOFORHSAI TW QANATW
> 
> English translations usually render this as: THE PASSIONS OF SIN 
> WERE 
> WORKING IN OUR MEMBERS THROUGH THE LAW FOR THE BEARING OF FRUIT UNTO 
> 
> DEATH.
> 
> If sinful passions caused the KARPOFORIA, shouldn’t “working” 
> (ENHRGEITO) be active? Wouldn’t it be better to have said TA 
> PAQHMATA 
> TWN AMARTIWN TA DIA TOU NOMOU ENHRGOUN EN TOIV MELESIN HMWN EIS TO 
> KARPOFORHSAI TW QANATW?
> 
> Or perhaps is there another way to understand this verse?
> 
> Dean Kalmantis
> 
> ---

I believe you've already been given an answer regarding this.  I can't
say that I've ever been particularly fond of the reading "for myself" or
"for yourself" or "for himself" which is usually given in 1st yr Greek
when a middle voice is encountered.  After you hear half a dozen exercise
sentences read in this fashion, you tend to want to scream "Enough!" 
Sometimes the reflexive idea seems hardly appropriate.  You should note,
however, the statement in the lexicon that the middle of ENERGEW is
always used with an impersonal subj.  Here the reflexive idea of the
middle seems appropriate -- it "works itself out" [in our members].

george
gfsomsel



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