[B-Greek] Rom. 1:13

Antti V J Mustakallio amustaka at cc.helsinki.fi
Tue Mar 15 08:54:23 EST 2005


Thank you, Carl, for your valuable opinion, and thank you for reminding me 
of the correct transliteration. In this mailing the transliteration has 
been fixed.

Antti

> At 2:50 PM +0200 3/15/05, Antti V J Mustakallio wrote:
>> Dear members of the list,
>>
>> In his essay "For I am not Ashamed of the Gospel (Rom. 1.16): The Gospel
>> and the First Readers of Romans" (In Gospel in Paul. Studies on
>> Corinthians, Galatians and Romans for Richard Longenecker, eds L. Ann
>> Jervis and Peter Richardson. 254-287. JSNTSup 108. Sheffield: Sheffield
>> Academy Press 1994) Steve Mason proposed a reading of Rom. 1:13 that has
>> bothered my mind lately. The Greek text goes as follows:
>>

OU QELW DE hUMAS AGNOEIN, ADELFOI, hOTI POLLAKIS PROEQEMENHN ELQEIN PROS 
hUMAS, KAI EKWLUQHN ACRI TOU DEURO, hINA KARPON SCW KAI EN hUMIN KAQWS KAI 
EN TOIS LOIPOIS EQNESIN

>
> I appreciate your serious effort to transliterate the text, but it looks
> like you've endeavored to transliterate a pasted text from a Greek-font
> text. On my screen the long letters (Omega = W, Eta = H) appear as square
> blocks. We also tend to use a lower-case "h" for the rough breathing.
>
>> The translation in NRSV is a good example of how this verse has usually
>> been understood:
>>
>> "I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that I have often intended to
>> come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap
>> some harvest among you as I have among the rest of the Gentiles"
>>
>> That is, Paul compares "you" and "the rest of the Gentiles", and "the rest
>> of the Gentiles" refers to those among whom Paul has already work in the
>> Eastern Mediterranean.
>>
>> Mason's proposal (p. 270) is quite different. He is of the opinion that
>> TOIS LOIPOIS EQNESIN should be translated "the remainder of the Gentiles"
>> - not just "the rest" - because the basic meaning of LOIPOS is
>> "remaining". According to his view, "the remainder of the Gentiles" does
>> not mean the Gentiles in the east but those Gentiles among whom Paul will
>> work in west, Spain. The idea would be as follows: "He will harvest some
>> fruit both among the Judean-Christians of Rome, in passing, and then
>> continue the mission for which he was called among the western Gentiles."
>> Mason gives the following translation: "I do not want you to be ignorant,
>> brothers, that I have often intended to come to you - and have been
>> prevented from doing so until now - in order that I might have some fruit
>> among you, just as also among the remainder of the Gentiles."
>>
>> I think that there are some details that support Mason's reading: there is
>> only one verb, SXW, in the clause, and KAI ... KAI -structure. A big
>> question to me is that can KAQWS really be so flexible.
>>
>> I would be happy to know what kind of opinions members of this list have
>> on Mason's suggestion. Is it grammatically defensible?
>
> For my part, I think Steve Mason's suggestion is perfectly reasonable. As I
> see it this is not really a variant of the Greek text but a way of
> understanding the Greek text. I don't really see a problem in the Greek,
> which I think admits of more than one understanding of KAI EN TOIS LOIPOIS
> EQNESIN. For my part I don't think that the KAI ... KAI usage here is at
> all an instance of the conjunctional pair but rather two (redundant)
> distinct uses of an adverbial KAI: "so as to have some success among you as
> well, just as among all the other Gentiles too." But the phrasing from the
> beginning of the hINA-clause seems to me to be loose rather than so tight
> as to require SCW in its tense and number to be necessarily implicit with
> KAI EN TOIS LOIPOIS EQNESIN. I think that it could apply to those Gentiles
> not yet visited, but the SCW could have its implicit ESCON with KAI EN TOIS
> LOIPOIS EQNESIN. In sum then, I think that Mason's interpretation is
> plausible enough (certainly KAQWS is flexible enough), but I don't see that
> it must be any MORE plausible than the interpretation holding that KAQWS
> KAI EN TOIS LOIPOIS EQNESIN refers to Gentiles with whom Paul has already
> had some successful interaction.
> -- 
>
> 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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