[B-Greek] Hebrews 1.8

Jason BeDuhn Jason.Beduhn at NAU.EDU
Fri Jul 9 17:24:17 EDT 2004


Dear B-Greek subscribers,

I am not a member of your list.  But my name has come up in a discussion of 
Hebrews 1.8, and I wish to set the record straight on what I have said about 
this verse in my book Truth in Translation.  First of all, you should know 
that the book is about translation, not interpretation, and that all of its 
arguments are rooted in linguistic analysis of the original Greek of the New 
Testament within its literary, historical, and cultural context.  It does not 
concern itself with theological debate over interpretation.  A year or so ago, 
when someone brought up the book as a topic for discussion on this list, the 
moderators banned any such discussion, for reasons that escape me.  But now 
Dr. Conrad, without benefit of actually reading my very short chapter on 
Hebrews 1.8, has objected to one sentence within that chapter that was quoted 
on this list, and offered an analysis at the conclusion of which he states 
that what I have said "will not stand as an objection to the conventional 
translation of Heb. 1.3" and that "BeDuhn's claim that the conventional 
reading of the text is grammatically invalid just won't hold water."

To his credit, Dr. Conrad qualifies his conclusions by stating that they apply 
to my position "if it has been accurately cited and in sufficient context."  I 
must say that it has not.  Nor do I fault the individual who quoted me, 
because his sole purpose was to ask if the particular point I made in the one 
sentence (not my whole position and argument) was factually correct.  Dr. 
Conrad certainly did not have sufficient information on my argument to 
gratuitiously assert that I am "unaware of the existential function of the 
verb EINAI in Greek" and that I "assume that all instances of the verb are 
copulative."  Nor was he in a position to assume that I consider the 
conventional reading of Heb. 1.3 to be invalid.  In fact, I say in my book, 
"Both translations [the conventional and the one found in the NWT, as well as 
in notes to the NRSV and TEV] are possible, so none of the translations we are 
comnparing can be rejected inaccurate.  We cannot settle the debate with 
certainty" (99) and "Let me repeat that both ways of translating Hebrews 1.8 
are legitimate readings of the original Greek of the verse.  There is no basis 
for proponents of either translation to claim that the other translation is 
certainly wrong.  All that can be discussed is which translation is more 
probable" (101).  I hope that is clear.  I argue in the book that "God is your 
throne" is more probable based on the following points:

Linguistic:
1. preponderance of use of hO QEOS as a nominative, rather than as a vocative;
2. lack of parallel to using EIS TON AIWNA as an absolute predicate phrase; 
preponderance of its use as modifier of other elements within the predicate;
3. the existence of an alternative way to convey the vocative if it is 
intended.

Literary:
1. literary context in Hebrews fails to supply another reference to Jesus as 
"God"; functionality of the verse in its context without taking hO QEOS as a 
vocative;
2. literary context of original passage in Psalm 45 shows that God is not 
being addressed; rather a king is being praised by cataloguing the attributes 
of his life in the palace.

Let me add that this argument in presented in just two pages written at a 
popular level.

Dr. Conrad has gone to the trouble of carefully investigating my statement 
that "There is no other example in the Bible where the expression 'forever' 
stands alone as a predicate phrase with the verb 'to be' . . .  'Forever' 
always functions as a phrase complementing either an action verb, or a 
predicate noun or pronoun" (99, part of Linguistic argument 2 above). He cites 
what he considers contrary examples, and this leads to his conclusion that my 
statement is in error.  It is in error only in the way I sometimes let the 
popular level at which I am writing in the book oversimplify, namely, (a) I 
use "Bible" and "New Testament" interchangeably in the book, and (b) once I 
have given an English rendering for a Greek phrase, I use the English to stand 
for the referenced Greek wording. I can see now that his needs to be handled 
more carefully in future editions of the book.  My statement, within the 
context of how the book is written (with the two practices of simplification I 
just mentioned) is correct.  None of Dr. Conrad's examples refute it, and I am 
surprised no one else on this list has noted that fact.  In none of Dr. 
Conrad's examples does the phrase EIS TON AIWNA stand alone with an explicit 
or implicit EINAI in the predicate.  Instead, his exampled involve either the 
dative of possessor which the phrase complements (in the doxological formulae) 
or the adverbial phrase MEQ' hUMWN, which again the phrase complements.  Now 
we all know how easy it is to quibble about what is or is not a true parallel.
 But all I wish to assert here is that Dr. Conrad's argument falls short of 
demonstrating a failing in mine.

On the other hand, Dr. Conrad's instincts were right, even if he did not 
succeed in supporting them sufficiently.  That is the case because if we take 
the Septuagint into account, then my statement would need to be qualified.  
Because there, in that part of the Bible that I did not take into 
consideration in my analysis, we do find the phrase EIS TON AIWNA used 
absolutely with either explicit or implicit EINAI, namely, in Psalm 80.16 
(81.15), 103.31 (104.31), 134.13 (135.13), and repeatedly in the expression 
"his mercy (is) forever" in Psalms 99, 105, 106, 117, 135, and 137).  So this 
information would require me to speak here, as I do in connection with hO 
QEOS, of preponderance of usage rather than claiming that there are no other 
examples.  EIS TON AIWNA usually and regularly modifies some other element of 
a predicate, but it can stand alone, and so this part of my argument looses 
much of its force.  A survey of the Psalms does show, however, that the 
preferred way to make an existential statement about the subject with EIS TON 
AIWNA is with MENW (e.g., Psalms 9.8, 32.11, 88.37, 101.13, 102.9, 110.3, 
110.10, 111.3, 111.9, 116.2).

With that, let me just repeat that there is no objective, linguistic way to 
determine which of the two possible translations of Heb. 1.8 is the correct 
one, and one's choice must always be qualified by this fact.  I have made an 
argument for preferring one translation as more probable, and even with a 
retraction of one part of it as too sweeping an assertion, that argument is 
still stronger than any with which I am familiar on behalf of the other 
possible translation.  I would be interested to hear any argument that could 
be made on linguistic and literary grounds for preferring the "conventional 
translation" to the other.

best wishes,
Jason BeDuhn

Jason BeDuhn
Associate Professor of Religious Studies, and Chair
Department of Humanities, Arts, and Religion
Northern Arizona University




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