[B-Greek] "behave thyself in the house of God"

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Wed Sep 28 17:20:01 EDT 2005


On Sep 28, 2005, at 4:31 PM, Gary Smith wrote:

> Dear Dr. Conrad:
>
> I write again concerning the expression hINA EIDHiS PWS DEI EN  
> OIKWi QEOU ANASTREFESQAI
> I appreciate so much your response, especially considering I was  
> not so plain as to what I was seeking. You hit it on the head. It  
> seems that your scholarship goes beyond the mechanics of the  
> language and has enabled you to read somewhat between the lines. My  
> understanding of the verse in the original is "that you may know  
> how it is essential to behave in the house of God." By not  
> inserting either a second person singular pronoun (you--or thou) or  
> a third person plural pronoun (men) one gets a more literal rendering.
>
> I do have however an additional question. Could a person make the  
> claim that EN functions numerically, and that oikw should be  
> understood as locative without ev? Thus by such an understanding  
> derive the word one from en and complete the thought with  
> ANASTREFESQAI.

You mean: read the text as if it were PWS DEI hEN OIKWi QEOU  
ANASTREFESQAI?
(a) No, the locative OIKWi does require the preposition EN;
(b) I can see no way to make sense of this reading EN as hEN (the  
neuter sg. nom/acc numeral for "one").

> Then we have the writer making grammatical application to Timothy,  
> rather than to all men. I am not claiming this to be my view,  
> though it is a view I have considered. I am thinking that if this  
> is possible grammatically then this may have been what the KJV tr.  
> were thinking. On the rest of the reading I have no problem with  
> either "a house of God" or "the house of God." I do lean slightly  
> toward "the house of God" though there is no article in the Greek.  
> Please respond again as I am endeavoring to put this verse together  
> with the context at hand. I personally believe EN has no such  
> application here, but remain unsure. I am thinking that the  
> application has more to do with the qualifications set down for  
> Elders and
>  deacons and tha this is the behavior he has in mind, and not that  
> of Timothy. Thanks again-----Gary S Smith

I think you may very well be right about the more general application  
of PWS DEI EN OIKWi QEOU ANASTREFESQAI. Perhaps the problem is more  
with ANASTREFESQAI; it seems to me that this verb in the middle voice  
means essentially "be engaged" or "be involved" or even "go about  
doing business" or "taking care of administration." But you don't  
need to play games with EN in order to understand the text that way.

(Please use our standard transliteration when transcribing Greek text  
in list correspondence).

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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