[B-Greek] Genitive in Romans 6:6c
Iver Larsen
iver at larsen.dk
Fri Jul 14 04:23:28 EDT 2006
[Yancy:]
> 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.
IL:
It seems to me that you are stretching the concept of metonymy beyond its breaking point.
A metonymy can associate a closely related concept with a given word. Sinful acts or a sinful lifestyle can easily be
associated with the body. Bullinger comments on this passage (p. 565): "Metonymy .. the effect for the thing or action
causing or producing it....The effect is put for the cause; which is the old nature, that, through the body, works out
sin; and sin is the effect; which is thus used, here, and in other parts of this epistle (5:12-8:39), for the old nature
itself."
I don't think you can include specific additional concepts like "created by God for immortality, but weakened through
slavery to sin to the point of mortality" into the metonymy concept. If you want to restrict the sense of SWMA in
Paul's writing to that specific sense, you would have to appeal to context to supply all the added bits of meaning.
It seems to me that you have somehow gotten the idea that SWMA stands for this complex concept and then you go around in
circles, assuming a priori that this is the sense in every occurrence in Romans.
>
> 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?
I won't go beyond KATARGEW here, but you are correct in assuming that I consider your interpretation impossible on
purely grammatical grounds. In looking at all occurrences of the verb (in the GNT), it seems clear that the verb is
semantically divalent, i.e. it takes an agent and patient. A third valency can be added by the use of a prepositional
phrase (but not simply by a genitive noun). Confer DIA in Rom 3:31, APO in Rom 7:2,6, Gal 5:4, EN in 2 Cor 3:14. The
dative in 2 Th 2:8 functions in the same way as a prepositional phrase with EN and indicates means. Of course, if the
verb is passive as in Rom 6:6 and many other places, the patient is expressed syntactically as subject and the agent
unspecified.
Iver Larsen
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