[B-Greek] 2 Corinthians 1:17

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Apr 7 09:07:51 EDT 2005


At 12:05 PM +0100 4/7/05, Paul Toseland wrote:
>  Dear Carl,
>
>TOUTO OUN BOULOMENOS MHTI ARA THi ELAFRIAi ECRHSAMHN? H hA BOULEUOMAI KATA
>SARKA BOULEUOMAI, hINA Hi PAR EMOI TO NAI NAI KAI TO OU OU?
>
> >I won't essay to go beyond "the H conjunction," as you put it.
>
>Well, I for one would be very interested in your take on the rest of the
>verse. For example, does H introduce an
>alternative to, or a clarification of, the preceding clause? And what do
>you make of the hINA clause? Are the
>second NAI and OU predicates, or oath formulae, or are NAI NAI and OU OU
>just emphatic forms of NAI
>and OU? Does the fronting of PAR' EMOI constrain the options?

At 12:29 PM +0100 4/7/05, Paul Toseland wrote:
> >Are the second NAI and OU predicates, or oath formulae, or are
> >NAI NAI and OU OU just emphatic forms of NAI and OU?
>
>I should have put this more clearly:
>
>Are the second NAI and OU predicates? Or are TO NAI NAI and
>TO OU OU oath formulae, or simply emphatic forms of NAI and OU?
>(And if the latter, what is the function of the articles?)

Well, I limited my response in the first place because Zack's question was
limited to the phrases in the first question in the verse and also because
I could see that the second question was a can of worms. For that reason,
I preface my comments with an open admission that I'm trying to guess
intelligently about this and may readily be convinced by cogent arguments
to amend anything I say about it now ;-)

I think then that it's more likely that the second NAI and OU are
predicates, and so I would understand (tentatively, that is) this second
question as something like, "Or am I laying my plans as I am in the
weakness of my humanity so as to be decisive in what I affirm or deny?"

That is to say: (a) PAR' EMOI is, I think, fronted for emphasis and will
mean something like "so far, at least, as I myself am concerned" or "for
me, at least"), and (b) TO NAI and TO OU are subjects of Hi, while the
second NAI and the second OU are predicates. And I'd understand what Paul
is questioning here as meaning by implication: "Might it be the case that
when I expressed this intention I was I was being less than fully honest?
Or that I'm letting my human weakness come to the fore so as to make myself
appear more decisive than I really am?" Which is to say, Paul seems here to
be trying to convince the Corinthian congregation that he was perfectly
honest in his intentions, but at the same time he raises the possibility
that his motivations may not have been in accordance with God's will.

That's my current thinking about this, but I may well be wrong about it.
I've said before (especially with regard to Galatians 1-2) that we have to
read between the lines when trying to understand what Paul is saying in a
communication wherein his audience and he both have an awareness of many
matters that we modern readers/interpreters do not know enough about. I'm
also thinking of that passage in Rom 14 where he talks about the difficulty
of being clear about one's own motives for acting as one does, and I think
it's possible that he's here raising the possibility--if only to deny
it--that he himself might have been less than clear and candid about his
own motivations.

So that's what I THINK, at this point, at least.
-- 

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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