[B-Greek] AGGELOS in 2 Cor 12:7

Harold R. Holmyard III hholmyard at ont.com
Sun May 23 21:56:09 EDT 2004


Dear Ann,

>I am not sure if you are disagreeing with what I have said (?) as your
>quotes support what I said.

HH: I'm not disagreeing with what you've said. However, you seemed to 
favor the person or spirit approach as against the bodily condition 
interpretation.

>The verses you have cited about SKOLOS actually support what I said - I have
>suggested there is wide range of meaning for the AGGELOS in question, and
>the verses you have cited are not sickness. Further, I myself translate
>ASQENEIA as "weakness" in the passage you have quoted, as indeed does the
>passage you have quoted, not as "sickness". Of course, the word's semantic
>range includes both.

HH: Right, I was saying that ASQENEIA suggests a physical condition 
in the passages.

>At any rate, Paul did not actually use large handwriting in Galatians due to
>poor eyesight, - to put it in our idiom, he was saying, in effect, "Get the
>point! Look at the large letters I'm using! I'm spelling it out to you right
>now!" - "Hey, you! Look at this! Get the point! Read my lips!".

HH: That could be. It's not right at the end of the epistle. Content 
does follow the verse about large letters.

>Galatians
>uses typical words about the evil-eye spell - these have been ignored to
>date in published NT translation, but throughout Galatians Paul plays on
>words with the word "eye". Gal. 3:1, "You senseless Galatians, who has cast
>a spell on you by using the evil eye spell of mind control!":  BASKAINW, to
>use words to cast a mind-control spell on someone by means of the evil eye,
>hapax for the N.T. Some believed that to see one's reflection made one
>liable to the effects of the evil eye, and the spell was broken by spitting
>three times, cf. Theokritos, VI, 35-40.

HH: Right, BAGD agrees with you.

>  A 3rd century A.D. stone inscription
>tells of the effects upon one who testifies to having the evil eye put on
>them, with the result that his wife and children were killed. ed. CIG (1877;
>repr. 1977) 9668, l.2. A funerary epigram for Apollodorus, Pfuhl/Mobius
>1.1021 (pl. 153; = E. Schwertheim, Die Inschriften von Kyzikos und Umgebung,
>1 [IK 26.1; Bonn, 1980] 493 [pl. 34], describes Hades as casting his evil
>eye upon honorable things. An amulet described by J. Russell, JOB 32 (1982)
>539-548 has the wording "the seal of Solomon holds in check the evil eye."
>See also the early 1st c. inscription, IG VII 581.5 (Megara), which alludes
>to the pagan god Hades' jealousy of mortals who have higher thoughts; IKret
>2.3.44 (Aptera, III AD), of a husband lamenting that the evil eye was put on
>him and thus his wife died; and TAM 3.1.810.8 (Termessos, II-III AD), an
>epitaph in which it states that fate cast her evil eye on the deceased.
>Paul continues the wordplay with the next sentence, "Before your very eyes".
>In Galatians 4:14, some translations add "bodily illness", "state of my poor
>body", "my illness / condition was a trial to you", none of which are in the
>Greek. In v 15, Paul continues to play on words (and we all know just how
>much Paul loves to play on words, that is, in the Greek - it is often not
>apparent in English translation).
>
>In conclusion, people prior to the evidence of the papyri and inscriptions
>have surmised, with a great deal of circular reliance, that Paul had bad
>eyesight and that the Satanic messenger was a sickness, but the evidence
>suggests otherwise.

HH: Thanks for all this information, but I'm not sure that Gal 4:15's 
idea about tearing out their eyes is related to the earlier 
bewitching idea. At least I don't see the connection. It's pretty far 
from Gal 3:1, and the context is different. If Paul was suffering in 
his eyes, this spirit on their part would suggest a generous sympathy 
in keeping with the context of the physical condition suggested by 
the phrase ASQENEIA THS SARKOS (Gal 4:13). The Galatians had a trial 
on account of his flesh, his body (v. 14). But they did not reject 
him on account of it. Rather they would have torn out their eyes for 
him if that would have done any good, which of course it wouldn't.

				Yours,
				Harold Holmyard




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