[B-Greek] 1Co 7:37 hOS and its referent
Carl W.Conrad
cwconrad at ioa.com
Sat Apr 23 12:11:09 EDT 2005
On Apr 23, 2005, at 11:46 AM, Oun Kwon wrote:
> Dear the list members,
> 1Co 7:36-38 has been translated in several different contradicting
> ways
> because the text seems unclear about who is the male person being
> referred
> to; one way of understanding this text is by taking him as the *father
> *of
> the virgin and another one is the *fiancé* of the virgin. Each one has
> its
> own huddles from within the Greek text itself. For example. I
> understand v.
> 38 GAMIZW 'give in marriage; marry some off' is not same as 'marry',
> then v.
> 38 would not allow to take the man as her fiancé. Some rendering keeps
> it
> rather unclear.
>
> As a solution for the difficulty in interpretation and translation, I
> like
> to take the relative pronoun hOS at the beginning of v. 37 being
> disconnected from the previous verse, and making a new sentence here
> and
> taking him as her father in contrast to her fiancé in the v. 36. In
> that
> case 'virgin' may be further clarified as *'virgin fiancee'* in v. 36
> and *'virgin
> daughter'* in v.37 and 38. This would make the rendering smoother,
> clear,
> and without contradiction.
>
> Here I have to have some insight from Greek grammar. Because, if this
> relative pronoun should be connected to the preceding verses, I fail
> to find
> the expected referent to make my understanding correct. In a
> dictionary,
> some different constructions of this were mentioned, such as when it
> is sued
> with particles EAN or AN, where it is translated 'whosoever, whatever,
> whose' (Complete Biblical Library) . This may give some support of my
> rendering which disconnects hOS from the preceding clause so that I do
> not
> have to find its referent which only comes up in the following. How
> should I
> understand this relative pronoun in Greek grammar and syntax so that I
> would
> not be making a mistake while trying to make a sensible rendering and
> interpretation?
The hOS in v. 37 doesn't have an antecedent: notice that it's hOS DE:
that means "but alternatively, the one who ..."
> Oun Kwon, a Gk IDWTHS.
I think you mean IDIWTHS and I wonder whether you're aware of the Greek
meaning of this word, namely "private citizen" (as opposed to POLITHS,
a person in civic capacity, i.e. as a member of the community).
> P.S. Is there any regulation whether one can you rtf format in our
> e-mail
> text.
The question is whether it will come through that way to others using a
variety of mail-programs. HTML text gets converted into plain-text by
the server.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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