[B-Greek] 2 Thess.1:12

Tony Costa tmcos at rogers.com
Wed Jul 28 00:04:04 EDT 2004


I was wondering if the Granville Sharp rule applies to 2 Thess.1:12, KATA THN CHARIN TOU QEOU HMWN KAI KURIOU IHSOU CHRISTOU. There is an article in the first noun QEOU but not on the second KURIOU and they are both joined by the conjunction KAI in reference to one person IHSOU CHRISTOU. Does QEOU and KURIOUS refer to Jesus? A parallel construction appears in 2 Pet.1:1, TOU QEOU HMWN KAI SWTHROS IHSOU CHRISTOU. Titus 2:13 also has the same construction. Most translations and commentators would argree that Titus 2:13 and 2 Pet.1:1 have Jesus as the subject of "God" and "Saviour". I was wondering why 2 Thess.1:12 is not considered in the same way. I noitced however that the NIV footnote for 2 Thess.1:12 has a variant reading as, "Or God and Lord, Jesus Christ". Robertson states on this passage, "Here strict syntax requires, since there is only one article with qeou and kuriou that one person be meant, Jesus Christ, as is certainly true in Titus 2:13; 2 Peter 1:1 (Robertson, Grammar, p.786). However, he also notes, "This otherwise conclusive syntactical argument, admitted by Schmiedel, is weakened a bit by the fact that Kurioß is often employed as a proper name without the article, a thing not true of swthr in Titus 2:13; 2 Peter 1:1. So in Ephesians 5:5 en th basileiai tou Cristou kai qeou the natural meaning is in the Kingdom of Christ and God regarded as one, but here again qeoß, like Kurioß, often occurs as a proper name without the article. So it has to be admitted that here Paul may mean "according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ," though he may also mean "according to the grace of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ." (Word Pictures, on 2 Thess.1:12) If I may also add since the question of QEOS as a proper name has been raised, Robertson also tends to agree that anarthorous nouns like KURIOS and QEOS can be and are used as proper names.

Tony Costa


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