[B-Greek] Comparison of EIS with PROS
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Jan 15 07:18:15 EST 2004
I think that I have already said in essence what I think about the question
batted around in this thread, namely, that this text (Ephesians 4:12) is
not articulated as clearly as we might wish (otherwise we wouldn't be
raising questions about it repeatedly, as if we haven't ever quite reached
any consensus about exactly what it means and how it means. We had what I
thought was a pretty good thread on this text two years ago, initiated by
Jay Adkins on July 11, 2002 with subject-header "Ephesians 4:12) and
continuing on through July 14 with messages from Jay Adkins, David Roe,
Iver Larsen and myself; the focus was upon the proper punctuation, the
functions of the prepositions EIS and PROS, and the syntactic structure of
the larger unit. I changed my mind in the course of that thread, pretty
much toward what I have expressed yesterday, on grounds that, in my
opinion, the author's intended meaning is not articulated clearly enough to
determine conclusively which of two or three different ways of reading it
is more probable. I do think that, while the meanings of EIS and PROS in
this text are part of the problem, the problematic nature of the text is
not resolved by any clarification of the meanings of EIS and PROS.
My revised view of the passage then was:
At 8:06 AM -0400 7/12/02, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>Perhaps there is no clear differentiation between the usage of PROS and EIS
>in vs. 12--and I almost think that it would be more "honest" to represent
>the looseness of the Greek in a loose English (for English substitute any
>other target language) rather than to attempt a more precise articulation,
>the effect of which is to tip the scales in favor of one interpretation of
>what's ambiguous rather than another. So I'd suggest:
>
>"for the equipping of the saints for servanthood-work, for construction of
>Christ's body" The comma following "servanthood-work" reflects the
>punctuation of UBS4/NA27, but quite frankly, I think that this construction
>is so loose that there's no way of being sure that EIS OIKODOMHN TOU
>SWMATOS TOU CRISTOU is intended other than as a parallel to PROS TON
>KATARTISMON TWN hAGIWN.
I concluded my last message in that thread thus:
At 10:57 AM -0400 7/14/02, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
> ... it does seem to me that the phrasing of several
>word-groups within the Greek text has a vagueness or imprecision
>contributing to a difficulty in any attempt at precise syntactic and
>semantic analysis of details, while at the same time the reader does not
>hesitate to recognize an intelligibility in the broader textual construct
>as a totality. My loose English was intended to convey an "impression" of
>how the Greek text works, and if one or more of the words I used were
>clearly not "normal English," then perhaps I was successful in conveying my
>sense that the phraseology of the Greek of this passage is not quite
>"normal Greek" either. My sense regarding the prepositions PROS and EIS in
>this passage is that they don't really convey any distinctive normal sense
>of PROS and EIS with accusative such that one could characterize by saying,
>"PROS + acc. = 'toward' + object"; rather PROS and EIS might either one
>convey what a colloquial user of English means by "with regard to," or "in
>respect of," or "as to," or "at," or even, as an American teen-ager of
>recent era might put it, "like--you know--" (when, more often than not, we
>by no means do/did know). I suppose I could have used "edification" for
>OIKODOMH (it's a not-unuseful equivalent for the way Paul uses the word in
>1 Cor), but it seems to me that the phraseology of the passage we are
>discussing involves a rather strange mixed metaphor of mechanical
>engineering and biological growth--one might compare the images Paul uses
>in 1 Cor 3:6ff for the work of "church-builders." In 1 Cor 3 the images are
>distinct, but here it seems to me that they are blurred so that at one
>point those "given" by the risen Christ are house-builders while at another
>point, ALL of us are in a process of growth into an organic whole or an
>adult that is a corporate "body of Christ." I can only repeat what I said
>before: I think the reader can readily envision the activity in the bees'
>hive that is becoming the body of Christ, but I don't think one can work
>out a detailed analysis of the phraseology and syntax.
One ought to view Iver's message on the subject too (7/13/02); Iver thought
NET had got this construction right, whereas I thought the NET had resolved
the issues without noting the ambiguity of the text.
--
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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