[B-Greek] EIS in Eph. 3:19
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat May 8 21:15:34 EDT 2004
At 3:36 PM -0400 5/8/04, A. Philip Brown II wrote:
>Eph 3:19 GNWNAI TE THN hUPERBALLOUSAN THS GNWSEWS AGAPHN TOU CRISTOU hINA
>PLHRWQHTE EIS PAN TO PLHRWMA TOU QEOU.
>
>I am surprised to find the ESV and NRSV, suppored by BDAG, s.v. PLHRWMA,
>translating the final clause of Eph. 3:19 as "with all the fullness of God."
>I can find no LXX or NT instance in which PLHROW + EIS has the sense "to
>fill with."
>
>On what grounds could one translate EIS as 'with' (indicating the content
>with which one is filled) rather than 'unto' (indicating the measuring point
>to which one is to be filled; cf. Eph. 4:13)?
I think it's a misunderstanding to suppose that EIS is being equated as
such with "with" in the English translation. It's a matter of understanding
what the Greek is saying and then conveying it in appropriate English. I
think rather that EIS PAN TO PLHRWMA TOU QEOU answers the question, "filled
to what extent?" rather than "filled with what?" although the latter is
implicit. Ithink the sense is "be filled full up, as far as God is full."
You might compare the expression in Eph 4:15 ALHQEUONTES DE EN AGAPHi
AUXHSWMEN EIS AUTON TA PANTA ... Here the verb is of growth but there's the
same use of EIS to indicate extent, "grow into him" to which is added
another adverbial accusative TA PANTA = "in every respect." I don't know if
it's still used but the recruiting slogan used for the U.S. Army a few
years back was "Be all that you can be--in the army." The comparable
exhortation (I guess PARAINESIS is the preferred term) in Ephesians is "Be
all that God/Christ can be in you!"
--
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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