[B-Greek] Gal 2.4: ellipsis or anacoluthon?
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun Nov 28 16:49:21 EST 2004
At 2:46 PM -0600 11/28/04, Steven Lo Vullo wrote:
>Hi all:
>
>Gal 2.3-5 reads as follows:
>
>3 ALL' OUDE TITOS hO SUN EMOI, hELLHN WN, HNAGKASQH PERITMHQHNAI; 4 DIA
>DE TOUS PAREISAKTOUS YEUDADELFOUS, hOITINES PAREISHLQON KATASKOPHSAI
>THN ELEUQERIAN hHMWN hHN ECOMEN EN CRISTWi IHSOU, hINA hHMAS
>KATADOULWSOUSIN, 5 hOIS OUDE PROS hWRAN EIXAMEN THi hUPOTAGHi, hINA hH
>ALHQEIA TOU EUAGGELIOU DIAMEINHi PROS hUMAS.
>
>My initial inclination was to take the first clause of v. 4 as
>elliptical, with an understood TOUTO EGENETO or something similar. This
>understanding is reflected in translations such as that of the NET
>Bible:
>
>"Now **this matter arose** because of the false brothers with false
>pretenses who slipped in unnoticed to spy on our freedom that we have
>in Christ Jesus, to make us slaves."
>
>However, other translations seem to be based on an understanding that
>there is a syntactical incoherence here. Note, e.g., the NRSV:
>
>"4 But because of false believers secretly brought in, who slipped in
>to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might
>enslave us--5 we did not submit to them even for a moment, so that the
>truth of the gospel might always remain with you."
>
>Then there is this in the ESV:
>
>"4 Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in--who slipped in to
>spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might
>bring us into slavery--5 to them we did not yield in submission even
>for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for
>you."
>
>So which seems more probable in the Greek, elliptical or anacoluthic?
FWIW, I think it's an anacoluthon. I rather doubt even that the NET
understood this as an ellipsis; I think rather that they inserted phrasing
to indicate what they think that Paul surely meant--and that seems to me
what the "translator's note" actually means: "No subject and verb are
expressed in vv. 4-5, but the phrase "Now this matter arose," implied from
v. 3, was supplied to make a complete English sentence." And I would agree
with that, i.e. I think that this is what Paul as writer/dictator of the
letter intended to say, but I think that Galatians is a later written in a
white heat of passion (that's an exaggeration, I guess) and leaving an
awful lot, especially in chapter 2, to be read between the lines as
something that writer and auditors among the Galatians readily understood,
although we modern readers can't be quite sure about it. So I don't think
it's an ellipsis, which term would seem to imply that this phrasing was
DELIBERATELY omitted, rather I think it's an anacoluthon resulting from
hasty composition and no proofreading of a dictation that the amanuensis
may have had difficulty enough getting down. When I look back at some of
the messages I've sent to this list, I sometimes wonder how I could have
let that go without doing a better job--or any job--of reading what I wrote
before hitting the "send" button.
--
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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