[B-Greek] 2 Thess.1:12
Iver Larsen
iver_larsen at sil.org
Wed Jul 28 15:20:29 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
I probably should read the full treatment in Wallace's grammar, but I don't
have the book.
>From my present understanding of the Granville Sharp rule, the rule itself
seems questionable. It can hardly be used to settle a question of identity
of reference. (I just noted that the BibleWorks 6 manual on page 118 based
on Granville Sharp wrongly asserts that POIMENAS and DIDASKALOUS in Eph 4:11
"is to be understood as a single office.")
There seems to be a general form of the rule and a restricted form. The
restricted form has extra conditions, such as both nouns must be in the
singular, both must refer to a person, and they may not be proper names -
which are difficult to define anyway. These extra conditions appear to be
quite arbitrary, and they suggest that the rule itself is questionable.
There are extremely few constructions the restricted rule might apply to.
There is a general principle in descriptive linguistics that the more
complex a rule is the less likely it is that it correctly represents how the
language works. So my feeling is that the rule is at best superfluous and at
worst misleading.
The general rule would have problems with the following parallel passages,
whereas the restricted rule does not apply because the nouns are plural.
Even if the restricted rule does not apply, I think it is worthwhile to look
at some passages:
Mt 16:21: POLLA PAQEIN APO
TWN PRESBUTERWN KAI ARCIEREWN KAI GRAMMATEWN
Mk 8:31: POLLA PAQEIN KAI APODOKIMASQHNAI hUPO
TWN PRESBUTERWN KAI TWN ARCIEREWN KAI TWN GRAMMATEWN
Lk 9:22: POLLA PAQEIN KAI APODOKIMASQHNAI APO
TWN PRESBUTERWN KAI ARCIEREWN KAI GRAMMATEWN
When two or more nouns are coordinated at the word or phrase level (implying
same case) and they are of the same gender and number, it is natural in
Greek to let the first article cover all the following nouns, especially if
they are considered to be forming a group of some kind. If the author wants
to emphasise that EACH group did the same thing, the article may be
repeated.
So, I would analyze the above three passages by saying that Matthew and Luke
consider the three groups as jointly responsible (the elders, chief priests
and scribes together) whereas Mark puts some emphasis on each group carrying
their own responsibility. If this is correct, maybe that nuance could be
caught in English by translating the Mark passage as "by both the elders and
the chief priests and the scribes". In case English cannot "both" three
groups, one could say "both the elders and the chief priests as well as the
scribes." Or one might repeat the preposition: By the elders, by the chief
priests and by the scribes.
There is a similar parallel passage in
Mt 26:47 APO TWN ARCIEREWN KAI PRESUTERWN TOU LAOU
Mk 14:43 PARA TWN ARCIEREWN KAI (TWN) GRAMMATEWN KAI (TWN) PRESBUTERWN
Here the two last articles are textually disputed and appear not to be
original. The presence or absence seems to indicate a fine nuance in terms
of perspective, i.e. group or individual focus.
Since you mentioned 2 Pet 1:1, you may want to take a look at 2 Pet 1:2,
even though the restricted rule does not apply:
EN EPIGNWSEI TOU QEOU KAI IHSOU TOU KURIOU hUMWN.
Here QEOU and IHSOU refer to different entities. The lack of article in 2
Pet 1:2 probably indicates a unity between God and Jesus, but not identity.
Knowledge of Jesus as our Lord implies knowledge of God, the Father,
according to John's Gospel.
Likewise, I don't think that the lack of article in 2 Thess 1:12 implies
identity, but certainly unity in terms of giving grace. Whether the unity in
these general Granville Sharp constructions at times evolves into identity
of reference is not a matter of syntax alone, IMO, but rather a matter of
syntax, semantics and pragmatics together.
It is particularly difficult to decide cases of identity involving words
like Saviour, Lord and God, since all three words are used in the GNT to
refer to both the Father and the Son.
Iver Larsen
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