[B-Greek] Heb 3,16

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat May 1 12:46:37 EDT 2004


At 8:19 AM -0700 5/1/04, Eddie Mishoe wrote:
>TINES GAR AKOUSANTES PAREPIKRANAN; ALL' OU PANTES hOI
>EXELQONTES EX AIGUPTOU DIA MWUSEWS;
>
>17...
>TISIN DE PROSWCQISEN TESSERAKONTA ETH; OUCI TOIS
>hAMARTHSASIN, hWN TA KWLA EPESEN EN THi ERHMWi
>
>The NET Bible takes this:
>
>3:15 As it says, "Oh, that today you would listen as
>he speaks! Do not harden your hearts as in the
>rebellion."
>3:16 For which ones heard and rebelled? Was it not all
>who came out of Egypt under Moses' leadership?
>3:17 And against whom was God provoked for forty
>years? Was it not those who sinned, whose dead bodies
>fell in the wilderness?
>
>Does 16 have to be a question? Why not translate it:
>
>"For some having heard rebelled (but not all those led
>out of Egypt by Moses)"
>
>It seems possible that verse 16 is clarifying that the
>writer does not mean ALL rebelled. As verse 17 further
>clarifies those the writer had in mind, namely, not
>ALL, but those who sinned.

I think that the problem here lies with the rhetorical structure of this
sequence: verses 16, 17, and 18 each begin with a rhetorical question upon
which follows a response in the format "it was X, wasn't it?"

16: "Who were they that heard and rebelled? Wasn't it all those who ...?"
17: "Who were they with whom he was angry for forty years? Wasn't it the
ones who sinned ...?"
18: "Who were they to whom he swore ...? Wasn't it the ones who disobeyed ...?"

While I agree there's a logical difficulty there, I think that the
rhetorical structure here is intended to be strictly parallel.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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