[B-Greek] "eis" in Acts 2:38

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Jan 7 21:30:48 EST 2005


At 7:13 PM -0600 1/7/05, Richard Roland wrote:
><Doug>i'm not quite sure what you are asking here. perhaps
>you could rephrase or elaborate.
>
>What Jerry is asking is whether the sentence structure makes it clear that
>the writer is saying "{Repent and be baptized} for the remission of sins",
>as opposed to "Repent, and be baptized for the remission of sins".  In other
>words, can we discern from the text whether the repentance, as well as the
>baptism, is EIS AFESIN?
>
><Doug> this may be getting a bit into theology, but i would
>add that EIS should NOT be understood or translated as
>"in order to" as if EIS (often translated "for") meant
>that the effect or result of baptism is forgiveness of
>sins (as if it meant that if you want to be forgiven
>you need to get baptized). if this were what was being
>communicated, we'd probably see hINA or hOPWS. as
>someone else said, probably the best understanding of
>EIS is "with a view to/toward."
>
>BDAG 3rd, EIS, 4f would seem to put what you say EIS should NOT be
>understood or translated as well within the semantic range of EIS.  But
>then, I am a novice.  If I am misreading or misusing the lexicon, I would
>truly appreciate being corrected.

I think it may be worth noting that there has been a voluminous
correspondence over the points at stake in this discussion over the years
on B-Greek. I don't think it would be difficult to do a search of the
archives even using Google as "B-Greek Acts 2:38"  One particular item that
may be of interest to several list-members who never saw it is a
"celebrated" message by our one-time Co-chair of B-Greek, Edward Hobbs,
entitled "Causal EIS" most recently re-sent Monday, March 20, 2000; I shall
not cite it here, but only note that Edward Hobbs did NOT regard very
highly the notion of "causal EIS."
-- 

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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