[B-Greek] Ephesians 2:8

Charles Rempel CharlesR at mygalaxyexpress.com
Fri Jun 17 22:31:35 EDT 2005


> On Fri, 17 Jun 2005 15:30:31 -0700 (PDT) Gregory Carpenter
> <grcjman2004 at yahoo.com> writes:
> > I have recently begun studying Koine Greek. I am studying from William
Mounce's book, "Basics of
> > Biblical Greek". In the beginning of Chapter 2 he states that "it"
refers to the entire process of
> > salvation, including our faith. How do you  grammatically explain from
this text that "it"
> > includes our "faith"? Thanks.


> THi GAR XARITI ESTE SESWiSMENOI DIA PISTEWS KAI TOUTO OUK EC hUMWN, QEOY
> TO DWRON.
> Note the word TOUTO.  It is from hOUTOS, hAUTH, TOUTO.  A check in BDAG
> (Baur, Danker, Arndt & Gingrich _A Greek-English Lexicon of the New
> Testament and Other Early Christian Literature_ (3rd edition), which is
> THE lexicon to have for NT studies (Accept no substitutes.  Go, sell your
> first-born child and buy one.), reveals that it signifies first of all
> "the person or thing comparatively near at hand in the discourse
> material."  In this case that would be PISTIS.  It is thus a matter of
> the nearest referent.
>
> george
 gfsomsel

Hi George,

Your answer works well if the gender of both the noun and the adjective
agree. But since PISTEWS is feminine and TOUTO is neuter the answer is not
quite so straightfoward as the nearest referent. Unless this is in the
archives it might be worthy of a little deeper discussion.

Respectfully,
Charles D. Rempel
30 year student
Without Portfolio




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