[B-Greek] pronoun for Pneuma

Dan Parker stoixein at yahoo.com
Sun Jun 18 19:07:49 EDT 2006


>> On Jun 12, 2006, at 7:45 AM, Tunç SABUNCU wrote:

>> Hi,
>>
>> From my readings, John refers to refers to "Spirit
of Truth" by  using a pronoun without gender. That is
not the case when he speaks about a preceding cite of
PARAKLHTOS. Do you agree with this?

> This is really a simple matter of grammatical
agreement with the gender of an antecedent noun; when
that antecedent noun is the neuter noun PNEUMA, then
the pronoun representing it is neuter singular to
agree with it; when the antecedent is the masculine
singular PARAKLHTOS, then the pronoun representing it
is masculine singular in agreement with the noun. The
pronouns don't tell us anything about the "biological"
gender of what is being referred to by either noun
PNEUMA or PARAKLHTOS). 
Carl W. Conrad >


I do not know if constructio ad sensum has been
discussed on the list in detail.   I uncovered only a
few posts in the archives.    

Dan Wallace lists Colossians 2:19  --
και ουv
κρατων
την
κεφαλην
εξ ου  -- KAI OUN KRATWN THN
KEFALHN EZ OU -- in his article "Greek Grammar and the
Personality of the Holy Spirit" published in BBR 13.1,
2003.    He believes this is quite common and gives
the following list in a footnote. (Cf., e.g., Matt.
25:32; Mk. 3:8; 5:41; Lk. 2:13; 10:13; 19:37; Jn.
1:12; 6:9; 17:2, 24; Acts 5:16; 8:5, 10; 9:15; 13:48;
14:4; 15:17; 25:24; 26:17; Rom. 2:14, 26; 4:9ff, 23f;
Gal. 1:22f; 4:19; Eph. 2:11; 4:17f; Phil. 3:7; Col.
2:15; Phlm. 1:10; 1 Pet. 2:19; 2 Pet. 2:17; 2 Jn. 1:1;
Jude 1:7, 12. For number shifts, cf. Matt 21:8; Mark
3:32; 5:24; Luke 5:29; 6:19; 8:40; John 6:2, 37; 7:49;
12:18; 17:2; Acts 6:7. Omitted from this list are the
numerous examples in Revelation because it is hardly
representative of the literary level and style of
Greek found in the rest of the N.T)

Would it be safe to say that in Colossian 2:19 the
masculine personal pronoun is used of "head" to
explicitly grammaticize personality?

Dan Parker









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