[B-Greek] Genitive or Dative?
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Mar 10 06:19:05 EST 2005
At 8:56 PM -0700 3/9/05, John Hall wrote:
>Howdy Ya-All! Greetings from the remote hinter-land of Twin Falls, I-dee-ho!
>
>My pastor and I were chewing the fat tonight, and we found something
>interesting between the King Jimmy and the "others". In the KJV
>"faith of..." is found in: Romans 3:22, Galatians 2:16, Galatians
>2:20, Ephesians 3:12, Philippians 3:9, and Revelation 14:12. In the
>NIV, NAS, and NKJV, it appears to be translated to be a DATIVE ("faith
>in..."). Looking it up in the TR (which BTW >is< the superior text
><grin>), we find the GENITIVE in each of these cases. For giggles, I
>even looked in the Critical Text and found GENITIVES there as well.
>
>Anyone out there know of this anomaly???
There is no anomaly, as you'd recognize clearly from the Greek: in all of
these passages the construction is of a genitive dependent upon the first
noun. What you have observed is different understandings of and preferences
for translating the construction: the genitive is understood by an
increasing number of interpreters as "faith OF Jesus Christ," although
probably a majority still understands it as "faith IN Jesus Christ." The
Greek grammar will permit either interpretation, so it is not a matter of
whether the Greek text has been misinterpreted. Interpreters determine
which they deem more probable based upon their understanding of the more
immediate as well as the more general Biblical context--but the issues
cannot be determined solely on the basis of Greek grammar. At any rate, in
each instance that you've cited it is the GENITIVE form of the name Jesus
or Jesus Christ which depends upon the noun PISTIS.
--
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/
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