[B-Greek] 2 Co 8:23
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Jan 13 06:23:29 EST 2004
At 9:06 PM -0600 1/12/04, Rick Duggin wrote:
>Dear B-Greekers,
>My question pertains to the last two words of 2 Co.8:23 --
>
>EITE hUPER TITOU, KOINWNOS EMOS KAI EIS hUMAS
>SUNERGOS; EITE ADELFOI hHMWN, APOSTOLOI EKKLHSIWN,
>DOXA CRISTOU.
>
>It seems to me that DOXA CRISTOU is most likely an objective
>genitive, meaning that the brothers are a glory "to" Christ, rather than
>a subjective genitive, a reflection of Christ's glory. But I am toying
>with the idea that the phrase may be an example of intentional
>ambiguity in order to convey both ideas.
>
>Any thoughts?
Might not "enhancement of Christ" serve the bill? The sense of DOXA here is
not that generally associated with Hebrew KBD but rather the much older
traditional sense associated with the verb DOKEW with its ambivalent sense
of "appear," "seem," "seem good," "have an impression," "have a
reputation." In BDAG the relevant definition is #3 "honor as enhancement or
recognition of status or performance, fame, recognition, renown, honor,
prestige."
I'd repeat yet again here what I've said often before, that the distinction
between "subjective" and "objective" genitive has less to do with the Greek
construction than with the translator's question of the best way to convert
the expression into a target language. I've suggested that sometimes the
best way to convey the sense of one of these adnominal genitives in English
might be to represent the Greek genitive noun in the expression into an
English adjective; so: "Christ enhancement"--even a hyphenated noun like
"Christ-enhancement" might carry over into an equivalent English expression
the sense of the Greek adnominal genitive. One might still be left with the
question of how to paraphrase that into something that is less ambiguous in
English, but resolving a question like that (a) depends upon a careful
analysis of the context (at the very least( and (b) may result in a
subjective judgment regarding what is a very loose construction in the
Greek.
--
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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