[B-Greek] 1 Peter 1:15")
Charles Rempel
CharlesR at mygalaxyexpress.com
Fri Dec 31 15:01:27 EST 2004
Charles:
> The "table" is not becoming something by itself, but rather something is
> being done to the "table" which causes it to become a snare and a trap.
The
> active agent in verse 8 is God.
Mitch:
What action did God perform on this table such that it
became a snare? Or, am I misunderstanding your grammar here?
Charles:
I am suggesting that God is the actor who causes the table to become
something that it is not. The question in grammatical structure of active,
passive, and middle voice is who or what is doing the action. Given that the
table is the subject of the sentence we would then ask is the table doing
the acting, is the table receiving the action from a different source, or is
the table acting upon itself.
The first option is not appear to be viable because the table is not acting
on another object. Because the table is inanimate and incable of action on
its own that would tend to lend itself towards the passive connotation. The
question then becomes "Who is doing the action?" Without developing the
theological reasoning behind this passage I went back to the previous verse
to find the actor, and it was God. God is the one causing the table to
become something which it was not. This verse does not answer the question
of how God caused the table to become something it was not. (Of course we
must understand that this concept is idiomatic in nature.)
The third option is that the table is acting upon itself. I would suggest
that the objection is the same for this option as it is for the first. In
addition, I would suggest that if you are saying that the action is done by
the table, then you must hypothesize how it is that a table can do an action
either to another object (active) or itself (middle).
Another possibility, entering into the idiomatic nature of the verse, is
that the people who sit at the table are the ones causing the action to take
place. Again the table is receiving the action of others, not its own
action.
The natural linguistic conclusion would appear to me to be that the table is
being acted upon.
Any other suggestions as to who/what is doing the action?
Charles D. Rempel
30 year student
Without Portfolio
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list