[B-Greek] "EIS" in Ac. 2:38
Eric Weiss
papaweiss1 at yahoo.com
Sun Jan 9 22:52:40 EST 2005
Doug Hoxworth wrote:
> ...
>
> "Repent (and each one of you be baptized in the name
> of Jesus Christ) for the forgiveness of sins (or
> perhaps the deep structure is 'Repent...so that your
> sins may be forgiven')..."
I think the easiest, most straightforward reading of the passage is that baptism,
and not repentance alone, is connected with the forgiveness of sins. As Dr.
Everett Ferguson writes in his work I mentioned (EARLY CHRISTIANS SPEAK,
vol. 1): "Quite impressive is the way all second-century authors speak of the
meaning and benefits of baptism....The unanimity and vigor of the early
second-century statements about baptism are presumptive of a direct relationship
between baptism and forgiveness of sins from the early days of the church. The
consistency with which second-century authors make the statements which they
do would have been impossible if this had not been the common Christian
understanding earlier. It is inconceivable that the whole Christian world reversed
its understanding of the meaning of its central rite of conversion within fifty years of
the lifetime of the apostles." (p. 34) (referencing and quoting from Barnabas,
Shepherd of Hermas, Didache, Justin Martyr, a fragment of an uncanonical gospel
from Oxyrhynchus Papyri V:840, Pseudo-Cyprian, Melito of Sardis, Theophilus,
Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian)
IMO:
What were they to do? METANOHSATE, or METANOHSATE KAI BAPTISQHTW
hEKASTOS hUMWN
How was this baptism to be done? EPI TWi ONOMATI IHSOU CRISTOU
What was this baptism for, or to accomplish? EIS AFESIN TWN hAMARTIWN
hUMWN
I.e., "be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins."
In other words, as Carl Conrad wrote:
> > "It can under the right circumstances mean "with respect to"--i.e. the
> > preposition simply highlights an accusative of specification."
>
> I must confess I don't really think that's satisfactory here;
> I think that EIS here does indeed mean "for" or "for the purpose of."
Eric S. Weiss
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
The all-new My Yahoo! What will yours do?
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list