[B-Greek] Heb. 6:3 EANPER EPITVERHi hO QEOS

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Mar 4 16:57:26 EST 2005


At 1:45 PM -0800 3/4/05, Eric Biggs wrote:
>Hello All,
>
>I was wondering if the phrase in Heb. 6:3 "EANPER EPITNERHi hO QEOS",
>could be another phrase for "If the Lord wills".  I have it translated "If
>God might happily turn towards us".  This is why I am thinking it might be
>another way of saying "If the Lord wills".

I think you mean EANPER EPITREPHi hO QEOS. Certainly it's the equivalent of
DEO VOLENTE, "if God wills it," but it does not appear commonly in the GNT
nor, for that matter, in the LXX, in this sense; rather it is commonly used
of the granting of permission to someone to do something, so that the
better sense here is "We'll do that, if God allows us to do so."

>So, I guess first of all, is that an all right translation, and if so is
>this phrase found anywhere else in the Cannon, or extra-biblical writings.
>I don't have the access or ability to search anything like this.

If someone wants to search secular Greek literature for that, it may be
that somewhere a parallel will be found, but it doesn't appear to be the
kind of stock phrase like the Latin DEO VOLENTE, "God willing."
-- 

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/



More information about the B-Greek mailing list