[B-Greek] 2 Thessalonians 3:17

Zack Hubert zhubert at gmail.com
Fri Dec 30 14:43:37 EST 2005


My thanks to all who responded.  Most likely I wasn't very clear in my
original set of questions, but the feedback is sufficient for now.  By way
of summary:

1) The author is free to choose whatever construction they like, even if
it's not what I would consider the most direct approach.  This is more
likely due to my shortage of reading outside of NT than any peculiarity with
the author :)  The genitive is perfectly fine here, I think I was just
thrown off by it appearing after the dative construction.
2) See #1.  Though a demonstrative would have been nice, it's not -required-
and doesn't particularly mean anything, just an alternate approach.
Questions of style are out of my league as of yet.
3) This question was more geared towards how the NASB had rendered the text
and the desire I had to get a better grip on how a Greek would have thought
about the original structure (would they have considered it good/poor
grammar or completely natural/preferable).

-Zack Hubert
WWW: http://www.zhubert.com
zhubert at gmail.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Zack Hubert [mailto:zhubert at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2005 11:27 AM
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: 2 Thessalonians 3:17

While making my way through Paul's letters, I've come upon this
passage which has left me just scratching my head:

2 Thess 3:17
hO ASPASMOS THi EMHi CEIRI PAULOU hO ESTIN SHMEION EN PASHi EPISTOLHi
hOUTWS GRAFW

The NASB renders it such:
I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand, and this is a
distinguishing mark in every letter; this is the way I write. (NASB)

My first cut...
[The greeting in my hand, Paul's, that is a sign in every letter just
as I write]

A few of my questions...

1) why is PAULOU genitive, seems a bit repetitive, why not instead use
a nominative absolute?
2) why isn't there a demonstrative pronoun somewhere in this sentence,
the articles seem a bit wooden...
3) overall...how is this meant to be understood directly, without
paraphrasing it to make an easier to read sentence?

Many thanks,

-Zack Hubert
WWW: http://www.zhubert.com
zhubert at gmail.com




More information about the B-Greek mailing list