[B-Greek] The meaning of "theopneustos" in 2 Timothy 3:16

Leonard Jayawardena leonardj at sltnet.lk
Tue Jul 25 05:38:43 EDT 2006


I just joined the B-Greek mailing list and so Hi! to everyone in this discussion list.

My question concerns the interpretation of  2 Timothy 3:16.  I take "theopneustos" as an attributive and active verbal adjective, so that my translation is "Every God-breathing scripture is also profitable for doctrine, etc."   I understand "God-breathing" to mean "breathing the breath of God."  In relation to God the expression "breath" is sometimes used anthropomorphically as a metonym for divine speech, e.g. Psalm 33:6: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth," where "the breath of his mouth" is in synonymous parallelism to "the word of the Lord."  (The metonym "breath" for speech presumably comes from the fact that humans exhale breath when speaking.)  In LXX "by the breath of his mouth" is to pneumati tou stomatos.  
 
Therefore "breathing the breath of God" means to speak or declare the word of God.  Paul says in vs.15, "...from childhood you [Timothy] have been acquainted with the sacred writings [OT] which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus."  I think what Paul probably means is  "Every scripture which declares the word of God is profitable, just as the Old Testament is, for doctrine, reproof, etc."  On this interpretation "every scripture" refers to scripture other than the Old Testament which is equally "God-breathing" and profitable with the Old Testament. The Scriptures are "God-breathing" by virtue of the fact that they contain the word of God and so declare it.  By "word of God" I mean any message in the Scriptures which has God as the ultimate source, e.g. the ten commandments, the prophecies of Daniel, the Christian gospel, but not, for example, pure historical narratives of the OT.
  
Is it possible to understand "theopneustos" in this way, i.e. "speaking or declaring the word of God"?  

Leonard Jayawardena
Colombo, Sri Lanka





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