[B-Greek] ONTWN - Romans 5

George F Somsel gfsomsel at juno.com
Thu Jun 16 09:26:40 EDT 2005


On Thu, 16 Jun 2005 05:14:10 -0700 (PDT) Eric Weiss
<papaweiss1 at yahoo.com> writes:
> ONTWN here is usually translated "we were" - e.g., 5:6 "For while we 
> were helpless"; 5:8 
> "while we were sinners"; 5:10 "while we were enemies".
>  
> Is it possible to translate it with a more present meaning, e.g.:
>  
> "For Christ, though/while we are helpless"
> "we still being sinnners"
> "while we are enemies"
> etc.
> (This may be awkward to say in English.)
>  
> The "were" translation can imply that what we/Paul/the Romans were 
> when Christ died, 
> we/they may no longer be (either in fact or by imputation), whereas 
> the translation of ONTWN 
> as a present "while/are" contains no such implication.
>  
> Without going into the theological implications or results of either 
> translation, I'm just 
> wondering if the "present meaning" translation is a valid 
> possibility.
> 
> Eric S. Weiss
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6.   ONTWN hHMWN ASQENWN . . . APEQANEN.
8.   hAMARTWLWN ONTWN hHMWN . . . APEQANEN

What we have in vv. 6, 8 is a genitive absolute which functions
adverbially in relation to the main verb APEQANEN -- "while we were weak
/ sinners . . . he died."  The adverbial usage here is generally temporal
(see Wallace, pp. 654, 55).

george
gfsomsel
___________


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