[B-Greek] Eph 1:4 EN AUTW

George F Somsel gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Tue Aug 8 08:59:26 EDT 2006


      First, text, Text, TEXT 
   


  KAQWS ECELECATO hHMAS EN AUTWi PRO KATABOLHS KOSMOU EINAI hHMAS hAGIOUS KAI AMWMOUS KATENWPION AUTOU EN AGAPHi
   
  Your out of hand dismissal of #2 has nothing to do with the syntax of the sentence.  As for your statement that "that just doesn't seem to mesh with the 
rest of the bible" -- well, a large group feels that it does accord with the rest of the Bible.  They are known as Calvinists, and I happen to be one.  I'm not going to get into a discussion of theology here since that is strictly against the protocols of this group, but I would caution against eliminating a possibility because of theological concerns.  Sometimes we can all be surprised when OUR positions do not seem to be confirmed by the text.  Just read the text and seek to understand what it is saying.
   
  As to your third option, I see no reason to take EN AUTWi with EINAI hHMAS hAGIOUS KAI AMWMOUS KATENWPION AUTOU EN AGAPHi (i.e. we are "to be IN HIM holy and blameless . . .".  The distance between the two is simply too great.  In any case, I think that what we have with EINAI . . . is what A. T. Robertson in his _A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research_, pp. 541-42 refers to as the "Infinitive as Final Dative" thus expressing the purpose of the preceding clause (which is that we are "to be holy and blameless . . .").
   
  ____________
  

Andrew Batishko <abatish at xmission.com> wrote:
  I'm only just now starting to learn biblical greek on my own, so forgive 
me if the answer to this is obvious.

Ephesians 1:4 seems to be frequently translated (in part) as something 
like "...He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we 
would be holy and blameless..."

I'm confused as to the usage of "in Him" here. I could see it being 
attached to three different possible concepts:

* He chose us in Him
* in Him before the foundation of the world
* that we would be (in Him) holy and blameless

The second I'll discard, because that just doesn't seem to mesh with the 
rest of the bible. The third makes sense to me, but only if "before the 
foundation of the world" is a parenthetical statement. The first is 
probably the most likely, but I really don't understand what it means 
for Him to choose us in Him.

Can someone help me understand the meaning?

Thanks,
Andrew
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george
gfsomsel
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