[B-Greek] "episemoi en tois apostolois"
CWestf5155 at aol.com
CWestf5155 at aol.com
Sat Aug 28 12:15:55 EDT 2004
<<In a message dated 8/28/2004 6:41:43 AM Mountain Standard Time,
gfsomsel at juno.com writes:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 04:34:53 -0700 "AwenDawn" <AwenDawn at ap.net> writes:
> Hello I am new here, please excuse any inappropriate discussion on my
> part and kindly let me know.
> I do not understand understand how the NET Bible 's first choice of
> translation of "en" is to rather than among? Romans 16:7. Sincerely,
> Awen
>
> Aida Besancon Spencer, makes the grammatical point that "the Greek
> preposition en which is used here always has the idea of
> 'within.'"(1) Greek text books point out that en followed by the
> dative normally means "in, on or among." For example, en tois is
> translated as "among those" (1 Cor 2:6), and en tois ethnesin as
> "among the Gentiles" (Acts 15:12, 1 Cor 5:1, Gal 2:2, Col 1:27, 1
> Pet 2:12). Where en tois is followed by a plural noun referring to a
> group of people, the word en is translated as "among." Liddel-Scott
> defines the Greek word episemoi as "having a mark on" it.(2) meaning
> they were not just notable but that they were outstanding among the
> apostles.
>............
> (1) Aida Besancon Spencer, Beyond the Curse, (Nashville: Thomas
> Nelson, 1985), 104.
>
> (2) Liddel-Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, 7th ed.
> (Hiawatha, Iowa: Parsons Technology, Inc., 1997), electronic
> edition.
>
_____________
One of the most valuable features of the NET Bible are the notes. You
should read them. They note the reason there. Cf. 2 Macc 6.1
ELEAZAROS DE TIS ANHR EPISHMOS TWN APO THS XWRAS hIERWN
where the genitive rather than the preposition EN is used and the meaning
is that he was "prominent *** among *** the priests of the country" with
Ps Sol 2.6 where the preposition EN + the pl dat appears and the sense is
"to" or "in the presence of" (see BGAD or BDAG s.v. EN for this usage)
hOI hUIOI KAI hAI QUGATERES EN AIXMALWSIAi PONHRAi, EN SFRAGIDI hO
TRAXHLOS AUTWN, *** EN EPISHMWi EN TOIS EQNESIN***.
>>
George,
Yes, I heard a paper given at ETS supporting this reading, where Wallace was
one of the co-authors (but not the reader). I did't find it convincing, since
in Bencancon-Spencer's paper it was shown with repeated citations that
occurrences of EN + dative do support "among" rather than "in the presence of,
particularly when the research included Hellenistic literature beyond the NT and
LXX. There were at least several clear examples of the same construction that
meant "among". This must be the basis of any decision rather concluding than EN
+ genetive meaning "among" in one occurence precludes the possibility of EN +
dative meaning "among" in any occurrence.
I'd like to have both papers in my hands, but when the reader was questioned,
the position seemed more based on how the naked dative functions than how EN
+ dative functioned.
The distinct impression left was that the research and the call in the Net
Bible was results-driven. I'd like to see that further tested.
Cindy Westfall
Denver Seminary
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list