[B-Greek] Romans 5

George F Somsel gfsomsel at juno.com
Thu Jun 16 10:16:46 EDT 2005


On Thu, 16 Jun 2005 06:36:47 -0700 (PDT) Eric Weiss
<papaweiss1 at yahoo.com> writes:
> > 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).
>  
> And, being temporal, it would likely coincide timewise with APEQANEN 
> ("died" ... "we were"). 
>  
> But must it coincide timewise with APEQANEN - i.e., does the aorist 
> APEQANEN rule out 
> translating the genitive absolutes as presents (i.e., "we are" 
> versus "we were")? After all, Paul 
> continues his argument with ECQROI ONTWN in 5:10, which is not a 
> genitive absolute 
> (ECQROI is nominative).
_____________

Yes, being temporal it does coincide with APEQANEN.  Your example  of
5.10 is a different construction -- the nominative absolute.  Whereas the
genitive absolute is adverbial and circumstantial ("while we were weak /
sinners, he died"), the nominative absolute which is not circumstantial
but substantival and describes the subject ("we who were enemies have
been").  

george
gfsomsel
___________



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