[B-Greek] Grace vs Faith in Ephesians 2:8

Eric Weiss papaweiss1 at yahoo.com
Fri Jun 4 09:03:32 EDT 2004


> I am having a discussion with someone about 
Ephesians 2:8.
>
> I want to read this verse as--
>
> "...By Grace (you are saved through faith)..."
>
> He reads it as--
>
> "(By Grace you are saved) through faith..."
>
> He has made the following statements.
>
> 1. In response to my claim that grace is the basis 
> for a person to be saved by faith, he 
> replied, "Grace" is in the dative, which means that 
> it is an indirect object. "By" is a prepositional 
> phrase of agency, telling us by what means salvation

> comes. "Through" is causal in nature. Both 
> prepositional phrases modify "being saved." Thus, 
> faith causes us to be saved by means of grace. 
>
> 2. To my claim that "You" is the subject of the 
> sentence, he replied SESWSMENOI is a Perfect Passive

> Participle, Nominative, Masculine, and Plural. It 
> has no person (thus, no "you"), and is ambiguously 
> adjectival. Literally translated "One who has been 
> saved."
>
> Is this correct? And what exactly is he saying?

A few thoughts:

"By" isn't in the text, though likely implied by the
dative case -- of course, "in" and "with" are
acceptable translations of the dative, depending on
the context. It simply reads THi CARITI ESTE
SESWiSMENOI DIA PISTEWS.

The present form or EIMI (ESTE) with the Perfect
Passive Participle likely forms a periphrastic
participle, roughly equivalent to a Perfect
Middle/Passive Indicative Second-Person Plural. If so,
then SESWiSMENOI really isn't "ambiguously adjectival"
as it doesn't stand alone, but must be linked
syntactically (grammatically?) with ESTE, thus making
it clearly second-person plural.

DIA PISTEWS could be instrumental or agency (i.e., "by
means of faith"), rather than causal. DIA with the
Accusative means "because," but DIA with the genitive
(as here) is usually translated "through." There is
some overlap, of course, in that if it's through the
agency of something that something happens, one could
suggest that it's because of the intervention/action
of this something.

In 2:6 it simply reads ESTE SESWiSMENOI with no
mention of DIA PISTEWS. This suggests to me that the
preferable understanding of 2:8 is (THi CARITI ESTE
SESWiSMENOI) DIA PISTEWS, i.e., as your friend reads
it. However, punctuating Ephesians is not for the
faint of heart!


=====
Eric S. Weisshttp://www.geocities.com/papaweiss1/index.htm


	
		
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