[B-Greek] Eph 1:13 - Hearing, Believing and "Sealed"

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Mon Nov 28 13:47:20 EST 2005


On Nov 28, 2005, at 1:04 PM, mike karoules wrote:

> Dear b-greek friends,
>
>   Eph 1:13 - "EN hWi KAI hUMEIS AKOUSANTES TON LOGON THS ALHQEIAS  
> TO EUAGGELION THS SWTHRIAS hUMWN EN hWi KAI PISTEUSANTES  
> ESFRAGISQHTE TWi PNEUMATI THS EPAGGELIAS TWi hAGIWi,''  . . .
>
>   in english could be constructed in 2 ways.  I am wondering if I  
> can get some advice on the which is the best rendering of the greek  
> sentence above  with giving attention to where I have placed the  
> parenthesis:
>
>   (1)  "In whom ye also, after that ye heard the word of truth, the  
> gospel of your salvation(in whom also after that ye believed), ye  
> were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise."  or. . .
>
>   (2)  "In whom ye also, after that ye heard the word of truth, the  
> gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed, ye  
> were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise."
>
>   The first option seems to state that the reader received the Holy  
> Spirit upon hearing the word of truth  while the 2nd option seems  
> to break it down more into 3 distinct steps:  Hearing, believing,  
> receiving the Holy Spirit(or receiving salvation).
>
>   I would just like to know which one best fits into the greek  
> grammer.  Would the text be more accurately read with the  
> paranthesis in our english.  Please note that I am not trying to  
> say that the first case that the reader's "hearing" is not mixed  
> with faith.  I just want to know if the phrase  "in whom also after  
> that ye believed, . . ."  can be rendered something as a subpoint  
> within this sentence.

I honestly do not believe that your option (1) is at all viable.   
NA27/UBS4 punctuate with a comma after hUMWN (before the second EN  
hWi), and rightly so, I am sure. This second EN hWi of the verse  
introduces a new clause wherein the aorist participle PISTEUSANTES  
must construe directly the with main verb ESFRAGISQHTE.

It has to be noted, however, that this whole segment of Ephesians  
1:3-14 is very awkward in its articulation and scarcely lends itself  
to an unambiguous syntactic analysis of the way consecutive clauses  
construe in relationship to each other. I have often thought that  
this textual sequence is best explained as a catena of liturgical  
phrases and clauses that are linked very precariously to each other  
by relative pronouns and participles. In 1:13-14 it seems to me that  
the second EN hWi tends more to obfuscate than to illuminate how the  
syntactic units of these two verses hang together. Without that  
second EN hWi we would have a clearer sequence EN hWi AKOUSANTES TON  
LOGON KAI PISTEUSANTES ESFRAGISQHTE. I think that the writer did  
indeed intend to indicate a sequence of actions (hearing the word,  
believing) culminating in the "sealing" endowment of the HS. But the  
"sealing" is much more closely associated with the "believing" than  
with the "hearing."

That, at any rate, is how I read this sequence.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/




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