[B-Greek] Genitive in Romans 6:6c
yancywsmith
yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net
Thu Jul 13 13:38:18 EDT 2006
On Jul 13, 2006, at 3:40 AM, Iver Larsen wrote:
I want to thank Elizabeth, Iver and Harold for their thoughtful
responses.
Thank you for your thoughtful and helpful response, you have got me
thinking, even if in the end I don't fully agree
It is interesting that out of four interpreters, we have three
interpretations of SWMA in Rom 6:6c
1. Elizabeth's and Iver's that it is NOT the human body, but either
roughly or exactly hO PALAIOS ANQRWPOS, and should be translated
something like "a life of sin."
2. Harold seems to think that SWMA is the human body, but did not
specify in which sense, would it be fair to assume that it is the
human body "insofar as it is characterized by sin"?
3. My view, that I am trying on for size, that it is the human body
as a creation of God. However, this does not rule out its use as a
metonym, just that, in this case it is qualified by hAMARTIAS. I have
no dispute with seeing SWMA in Romans as a metonym for the human
being, created by God for immortality, but weakened through slavery
to sin to the point of mortality. My view is closer to Harold's
insofar as both of us see SWMA as referring to the human body.
> [Iver] In this verse SWMA is qualified by THS hAMARTIAS, and it is
> quite parallel to SWMA TOU QANATOU in Rom 7:24. In the
> context that Paul is speaking into, the word SWMA was as a metonymy
> for the cravings and desires of a human being. In
> modern Western society, we rarely make that connection, because for
> us the mind is paramount. So, I would prefer to
> render SWMA by "life" in these kinds of contexts. Therefore, SWMA
> THS hAMARTIAS describes a "life of sin" or "life
> characterised by sinning" and SWMA TOU QANATOU "life of death" or
> "life that leads to death". And here "death" is not
> limited to physical death.
>
Since you appeal to Rom 7:24, and "body of this death" has also
sounded strange to my ears, I wonder if here we should read, "Who
shall deliver me from this body, from this death? Taking the genitive
as an abstract appositive. But this is not essential.
> [Iver] In Rom 12:1, it is not our "physical bodies" that we are
> supposed to offer to God, but our whole lives.
I would agree here if you said, "In Rom 12:1, it is not SIMPLy our
"physical bodies" that we are supposed to offer to God, etc."
However, I find it difficult to believe that it does not include
mainly our body as created by God and the things we do with it.
> [Iver] NCV translates: "I beg you to offer your lives as a living
> sacrifice to him." The literal versions obscure the meaning,
> when they keep the word "body" in English.
I prefer the translation "body" because of it concreteness, but I
think that you are right that, given our western dissociation of
"mind/body," some readers might think that body excludes the life
that one lives with the body.
>
>>
>> After thinking about it a bit more I see that Paul uses KATARGEW
>> elsewhere with similar meaning in conjunction with the ablatival
>> genitive.
>
> [Iver] Where does he do that?
>
The obiter dictum was the following, which you rule out of bounds
because of the presence of APO, I was simply giving it as an example
of KATARGEW qualified adverbially by the genitive, which it still
would be with our without the APO. It is simply less ambiguous with APO.
>> Perhaps the phrase with KATARGEW and APO and the ABLATIVAL
>> genitive in Rom 7:3, where "if the husband dies, [the wife] is
>> released from the law about the husband" is a good parallel to this
>> one. EAN DE APOQANHi hO ANHR, KATARGHTAI APO TOU NOMOU TOU ANDROS.
I intended 7:3 to be such an example, but you rule it out because of
the presence of APO. Of course Theodoret, a native Greek speaker
seems to have though otherwise.
> [Iver] It is not parallel, because here the APO is crucial, and
> there is no APO in Rom 6:6. KATARGEW with APO means to be
> released from (the authority of) what the noun in the preposition
> refers to. The authority of the noun referent is
> annulled, no longer in effect.
I heartily agree with your interpretation of Rom 7:3, but disagree
that the presence of APO is crucial. It is only crucial in a
rhetorical sense to this discussion. I.e. there would be no
discussion of the crux if Rom 6:6c read hINA KATARGHQHi TO SWMA APO
THS hAMARTIAS. My musing was that the phrase can be taken either way,
though I admit that the most natural reading is to take THS
hHAMARTIAS with SWMA. This raises two points, one grammatical and one
related to lexical semantics and context. The grammatical question
concerns whether the genitive can do the same work without APO as it
does with APO. I suppose you mean to say that APO is NOT optional
with KATARGEW and the genitive. I.e. that in Koine Greek it would be
impossible or at least highly improbable that a genitive with
KATARGEW would be ablatival. Would you extend that reasoning beyond
KATARGEW?
The second question concerns Paul's use of SWMA in the broader
context of Romans, and even further in his other letters, which is
probably less important. Is there a narrative framework of assumption
that helps give meaning to Paul's use of the term SWMA, or do we just
merrily translate and consider the options as presented by Louw and
Nida or BDAG? The question in Rom 6:6 has caused me to look more
closely at whether there is any coherence in Paul's use of the term
or not from start to finish in Romans.
In Rom 1:24 the failure to acknowledge God as creator and worship the
creature instead led to the "dishonoring of their SWMATA" and death
(1:27). Here SWMA refers to the body as a creation of God, good in
its purpose and beginning, but now mortal and enslaved to sin, the
effect of being "handed over."
In Rom 4:19 Abraham recognizes that his SWMA [HDH] NENEKRWMENON, was
[as good as] dead already. The linkage of the promise to Abraham with
his "dead body" links the fulfillment of the promise to the
resurrection, which is a reversal of the curse incurred by all
sinners, Jew and non-Jew in Rom 1-3:20. This is a subtle point, but
it shows the progenitor of the Jews as under the same curse as the
Gentiles.
Rom 6:6, the "body of sin" passage, which I take in this way: The old
man [Adam, and each of us as we relive his life of disobedience] was
crucified together [with Christ] so that our body [as we were created
by God] might be released from sin with the result that it no longer
is a slave to sin. I see the body as the "mortal body," created by
God for immortality but weakened and brought under the curse of death
through sin. The following verses show how believers must practice
obedience to Christ in hopes of resurrection and in view of God's
abundant grace.
Rom 6:12 "Do not continue to allow sin to rule over TWi QNHTWi hUMWN
SWMATI 'your {pl} mortal body' with the result that you go on being
slaves to its desires." Here, Paul counsels the imperatival side of
what he described in narrative terms in verse 6, 7. Still, what is in
view is the human body, albeit as metonym for the entire life lived
through the body along with its desires, etc, but as created by God
and weakened by sin. It is now "released from sin" but continues to
be a locus of conflict between sin and righteousness but has the hope
of experiencing resurrection life as a motive for obedience. There is
not hint of a "dead body of sin" but of a "mortal body," a very
different creature.
Rom 7:4 "you died through the body, SWMATOS, of Christ," that is,
through identification with the crucified body of Jesus, the Messiah.
The teaching about baptism into Christ's death is the background of
this phrase. It might be appropriate to comment that the resurrected
SWMA is indeed the same sort of body that the creator God envisioned
for humanity, but Paul is here placing emphasis on the Romans
indentification with the crucified SWMA to make his point about their
freedom from the Law as well as their freedom from the domination of
sin which reigns in the old world of Adam, the prototype of hO
PALAIOS ANQRWPOS.
Rom 7:24 the "body of death" passage. EK TOU SWMATOS TOU QANATOU
TOUTOU is most likely simply the human being as created by God but
now mortal and struggling unsuccessfully to overcome sin. Whether the
referent here is to all humans before knowing Christ, Gentiles
struggling to keep the Jews law before knowing Christ, mature
Christians in their struggle against sin is irrelevant to the question.
Rom 8:10 the SWMA is dead because of sin but the S/spirit is life
because of righteousness. I see no reason to take SWMA in any other
way than it has been heretofore used, as the human body or being as
created by God to be immortal but weakened to mortality because of
sin, but now with the hope of resurrection life because of the
resurrection of Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Rom 8:11 the same, now explicit.
Rom 8:13 "If you live according to the SARKA, you will die, but if
you put to death the practices of the SWMA by the Spirit you will live."
Here I see SWMA as meaning, essentially, the human being or body as
created by God but weakened to mortality because of sin. This would
also the meaning of SARKA, though I am sure Paul can expand the
meaning of SARKA in various ways.
Rom 8:23 "we await the adoption as sons, the redemption of our our
bodies." This illustrates, again, the narrative connection of SWMA in
Rom. It is the body or human being as created by God to be immortal,
but now weakened to the point of mortality by its slavery to sin. The
reversal of this problem is a symbol of the reversal of the
subjection to frustration of the entire creation. So, SWMA also
stands as representative of the creation and its redemption, or
release from slavery to sin and death, represents and "embodies" this
broader hope. The death of the "Old Man," i.e. the Adamic human being
[hO PALAIOS ANQRWPOS] at the cross fits into this narrative structure
as the precursor to the release of the body from slavery to sin and
death, which is already foreshadowed in Rom 6:6c.
Rom 12:1 The SWMA, "body" or human being as created by God but
weakened to the point of mortality by sin can now be presented to God
(through their connection to the body of Christ through
identification with his death) as an acceptable sacrifice because of
the sanctifying presence of the Spirit. This is one of the ways that
believers in Paul's law free Gospel can "fulfill the law" without
practicing the law, one of the essential problems Paul faces as he
writes the Romans, who seem to have had serious misgivings about his
law free gospel, see Tobin, The Rhetoric of Paul in its Contexts.
Rom 12:4, 5 SWMA here means physical body, but is used metaphorically
for the entire community as related to Christ and thus to one another.
In view of this broader context, I see every reason to take "SWMA" in
Rom 6:6c as the human body standing for the human being as created by
God for immortality but weakened to immortality through its bondage
to sin. hO PALAIOS ANQRWPOS I take to be a reference to Adam as
representing a spiritual or abstract concept of human life lived in
disobedience to God. It appears that the battleground for the
individual, the community, and the broader creation in the struggle
for the inbreaking new creation is the human body or human being
liberated from sin by Christ but still mortal and susceptible to sin,
but now strengthened by the presence of the Spirit and the hope of
immortal life in the transformed body and new creation.
Yancy
Yancy Smith, Ph.D. candidate
yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net
Y.W.Smith at tcu.edu
5636 Wedgworth Road
Fort Worth, TX 76133
817-361-7565
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