[B-Greek] 2 Thes 2:3a

Arie Dirkzwager dirkzwager at pandora.be
Fri Jul 23 16:18:47 EDT 2004


Eddie,

We have to be careful to distinguish between theological positions and
possibilities of the Greek text.
Let me state at first that I do not believe in a rapture before the great
tribulation. My father allways said you have to know the theological
position of a theologian before you read his book or article. So I want to
be clear.
But I still have to see if our text as seen from the Greek text can be
interpretated as teaching a theological position I do not held.

I do not think you can interprete hH APOSTASIA as referring to the rapture.
APOSTASIA normally means defection, revolt, esp. in religious sense.
According to LScJ there is however a Greek text (Olympiodorus, in
Aristotelis Meteora commentaria 320.2) where it means "departure,
disappearance". I cannot check the text for I do not possess it and
university libraries do not exist in the neighbourhood.
But the problem in 2 Tm 2 is "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our
being gathered to him" (verse 1) and that verse is referring to the rapture
according to theologians of all positions who have an opinion about the time
of the rapture.
In my opinion Paul cannot have said that "the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ and our being gathered to him" (verse 1) occurs *after* hH APOSTASIA,
if you see in hH APOSTASIA the same rapture.

Arie



Dr. A. Dirkzwager
Hoeselt, Belgium
e-mail dirkzwager at pandora.be

----- Oorspronkelijk bericht -----
Van: "Eddie Mishoe" <edmishoe at yahoo.com>
Aan: "Arie Dirkzwager" <dirkzwager at pandora.be>; "B Greek"
<b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Verzonden: vrijdag 23 juli 2004 20:16
Onderwerp: Re: [B-Greek] 2 Thes 2:3a


> Arie:
>
> Yes. You are right on the money with your comments.
> What I didn't want to raise was the implications of hH
> APOSTASIA, which many translate as "the rebellion." As
> you know, this word covers multiple semantic domains.
> Wuest I think taught it, but many others have
> followed, and have concluded that hH APOSTASIA must
> refer to a previous mentioned event and ties it into
> the gathering together (the "departure") to be with
> the Lord (what some call the Rapture). Often times
> people say that this hH APOSTASIA cannot refer to the
> "Rapture" on grammatical or syntactical grounds, but
> on purely grammatical grounds it actually can. As
> preposterous as it is that this could refer to a
> Rapture, I would not eliminate it on the basis of the
> Greek text. As you have suggested, this would better
> be eliminated on the basis of other eschatological
> passages. Taking hH APOSTASIA as referring to
> something completely disjointed from the Day, such as
> the Rapture, is permissible on grammatical grounds but
> dismissed on eschatological grounds, IMHO.
>
> =====
> Eddie Mishoe
> Pastor
>
>
>
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