[B-Greek] Romans 4:1

Harold Holmyard hholmyard at ont.com
Wed Jul 26 14:23:25 EDT 2006


Carl W. Conrad wrote:

>>
>> TI OUN EROUMEN hEURHKENAI ABRAAM TON PROPATORA hHMWN KATA SARKA
>>
>> What then shall we say, Have we found Abraham to be our forefather
>> according to the flesh?
>>
>>
>> HH: Another person on another list said that he found the translation
>> impossible. I tend to find it impossible, too, Perhaps one could think
>> of the words as:
>>
>> What then shall we say -- to have found Abraham to be our forefather
>> according to the flesh?
>>
>> HH: But it seems very odd to me. What do people with more  experience in
>> Greek feel?
>
>
> I don't know whether that includes me or not; I will say this much: I  
> have, occasionally, when coming back to this text in a sequential  
> reading, seriously considered that sense -- but then I could not get  
> past the thought: "Did we ever LOSE our fleshly forefather Abraham ?"


HH: The basis of the interpretation is a rhetorical question expecting a 
"no" answer. It evidently came up in a discussion in 2002:

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2002-January/019973.html

Richard Hays offered a translation like this:

Ti oun eroumen? [Eroumen] heurekenai Abraam ton propatora hemon kata sarka?

What then shall we say? [Shall we say]  to have found Abraham [to be] 
our forefather according to flesh?

There was mention of James Dunn offering a corrective on the original 
translation:

TI OUN? EROUMEN EURHKENAI ABRAAM PROPATORA HMWN KATA SARKA?

"In this case, the accusative (semantic subject) for infinitival clause 
EURHKENAI ABRAAM PROPATORA HMWN KATA SARKA can be readily supplied from 
the main verb EROUMEN."

"What then? Shall we say to have found Abraham (to be) our forefather 
according to the flesh?

You seem to be saying that if that is what the Greek meant, why didn't 
Paul insert the infinitive EINAI or an equivalent.

The idea is supposed to be that the Jews did not find Abraham their 
forefather according to the flesh necessarily, for unless there was 
faith in God, one was not the seed of Abraham. This idea supposedly 
anticipates Romans 9:6-9 later in the letter.

The problem I have with this theory is that Roman 9:6-8 is speaking in 
somewhat spiritual terms. Ishmael remained Abraham's son according to 
the flesh, didn't he? It was according to God's spiritual intentions 
that he was not a son of the covenant. I can see that someone could 
argue he was disinherited, but the phrase KATA SARKA in Rom 4:1 seems 
awfully strong as indicating simple physical descent, which was present 
in Ishmael's case whether he was disinherited or not. So I find the 
exegesis hard to accept.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard

 




>
>
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
> 1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
> cwconrad2 at mac.com
> WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
>
>
>
> .
>




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