[B-Greek] 1 Timothy 3:15 - Who is the "Pillar and Ground"
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Jan 7 11:57:03 EST 2004
The mail server at artsci.wustl.edu is down this morning and I'm checking
BG mail on the web, which makes responding more awkward at our MailMan site
than it used to be at the Lyris site. Accordingly I'm responding both to
David Sugg and to Ron Snider herewith.
At 13:52:46 EST 2004 1/7/04, David Sugg <davidsugg at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>Last night I came across an unusual interpretation 1 Timothy 3:15. The
>verse in question is:
>
>1 Tim 3:14 TAUTA SOI GRAFW ELPIZWN ELQEIN PROS SE EN TACEI; 15 EAN DE
>BRADUNW, hINA EIDHiS PWS DEI EN OIKWi QEOU ANASTREFESQAI, hHTIS ESTIN
>EKKLHSIA QEOU ZWNTOS, STULOS KAI hEDRAIWMA THS ALHQEIAS.
>
>The author claimed that "The pillar and ground of truth can not modify the
>word "church." These words must modify the word "God." The church of "God
>the pillar and ground of truth." "
>
>The author does not provide any grammatical basis for his claim, and after
>looking at the text, I do not think this is legitmate, based on the grammar.
>
>In the archives, I saw where Carl Conrad addressed this passage last
>October, and concluded "Grammatically then hEDRAIWMA and STULOS are
>appositional to EKKLHSIA, and ALHQEIA in the genitive here functions as a
>sort of objective genitive to a verbal notion implicit in those nouns
>inasmuch as they imply an "upholding" sort of activity: Truth is the
>burden/charge that the household of God upholds." Zerwick also sees
>hEDRAIWMA and STULOS as appositional to EKKLHSIA, not to QEOU.
>
>Does the grammar allow interpreting hEDRAIWMA and STULOS as modifying QEOU,
>rather than EKKLHSIA? If so, what factors would suggest the most likely
>noun?
>
>Wouldn't hEDRAIWMA and STULOS need to be genitives, rather than nominative
>for them to modify QEOU?
>
>I would appreciate any thoughts and help.
To back up a little bit, the most disconcerting element of this text is
hHTIS, the feminine relative pronoun referring to the masculine antecedent
OIKWi QEOU;on the other hand, I think this is pretty clearly an instance of
the "constructio ad sensum": although OIKOS is indeed masculine, OIKOS QEOU
is conceived as equivalent to EKKLHSIA and so the feminine relative pronoun
is used.
I would still say what I did in October, that hEDRAIWMA and STULOS should
be seen as appositives to EKKLHSIA, and I can't see any justification
whatsoever for construing hEDRAIWMA and STULOS as appositional to QEOU; and
yes, those words would indeed need to be in the genitive to be appositional
to QEOU.
At 10:38 AM -0500 1/7/04, Ron Snider <ronpt at comcast.net> wrote:
>[B-Greek] 1 Timothy 3:15 - Who is the "Pillar and Ground"
>Ron Snider <ronpt at comcast.net>
>Wed Jan 7 10:38:38 EST 2004
>
>If Carl addressed this, which he did, I guess I still wonder what is the
>question? If one is going to adopt some new reading which has no
>grammatical support in the text, or among any orthodox translators, it
>makes me wonder what their agenda is.
>
>It has been my experience, both grammatically and theologically that one
>needs to have some substantive reasons for deviating from orthodox,
>accepted translations and interpretations. That is not to say that
>tradition is perfect, but there have been many able students of the
>Bible over the course of the Church Age, whose work should not be
>discounted or rejected in favor of some novel translation/
>interpretation du jour.
>
>Personally, I have not seen anything on this list that Carl posts that
>has not been accurate.
I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I know that I have been in error
in some of my argumentation in posts to this list over the past several
years and I have changed my views on more than a couple items as a
consequence of list-discussions. I would agree generally with what Ron says
here, although I might phrase it differently; I'd say that there are some
Biblical Greek passages upon which there is no clear scholarly consensus;
in some instances the grammatical construction itself is ambivalent or
unclear and so admits of alternative ways of reading the construction; very
occasionally we find solecisms or anomalies that are not intelligible in
terms of "orthodox" grammar. Some such solecisms are found in Revelation,
but rarely is the intended sense unclear there; more problematic are the
anacolutha that are found occasionally in the Pauline
correspondence--instances of abandonment of the initial grammatical
construction in favor of a new beginning (particularly after a lengthy
subordinate clause or catena) in favor of a new or unexpected construction.
Then there are those instances of adverbs or adverbial phrases whose
reference forward or backwards is anything but obvious (as in Ephesians 1),
and there are also instances of relative pronouns that may be difficult to
construe with an obvious antecedent. But in most circumstances, I think
that Ron is right here: the burden of proof lies upon the one who argues
that a Greek text must have a sense different from that in which it has
been traditionally understood. One cannot simply assert that a given text
means something other than what it has commonly been understood to mean
without adducing credible evidence for one's surmise. Michael Tarver and I
were recently in some lengthy exchanges with a fellow regarding
understanding of the final hOTI-clause in 2 Cor 3:14 as subject of MH
ANAKALUPTOMENON as a supposed accusative absolute. That's a proposition for
which there is no support or parallel whatsoever. One will have to
demonstrate the evidence for an unorthodox way of construing a text, and
normally that will mean adducing one or more undisputable parallels.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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