[B-Greek] Definiteness
Brian Abasciano
bvabasciano at gmail.com
Wed Oct 11 11:39:37 EDT 2006
Sean,
Thank you. I found your response helpful and take your point.
God bless,
Brian Abasciano
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Kasabuske" <alethinon61 at milwpc.com>
To: "Brian Abasciano" <bvabasciano at gmail.com>; <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 6:48 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Definiteness
> Brian
> "I think an important point that Wallace makes that may deserve attention
> is
> that the two major studies (apparently three if you count Colwell himself
> on
> some level) on this found no indefinite anarthrous pre-verbal nouns. It
> may
> be determined by context, but if the scholars giving focused attention to
> the issue find no examples of indefinites (apparently based on their
> assessment of context inter alia), then that is strong evidence for
> Wallace's rule, at least as a pragmatic observation of actual usage. I
> suppose this raises all sorts of disagreements about how to best approach
> grammar, formulating rules, etc., but for those who think there is at
> least
> some value in usage based grammatical "rules" or whatever one wants to
> call
> them, this may weigh heavily in favor of a general stance of approaching
> such PN's in accordance with Wallace's "general rule"."
>
> Sean
> I wish I had more time to respond to this question fully, but my schedule
> this week is cramped. Here are some of the observations I've made:
>
> Colwell: The only thing we really learned from the Colwell years is how
> eager
> theologians are to find support for their presuppositions, and how sloppy
> some can be in their research. Some of the biggest names in the
> theological
> business, including Bruce Metzger and William Barclay, used Colwell's Rule
> to dismiss "a god" as a valid translation alternative. Yet surely these
> men
> saw the many PN-V's in John that are typically translated into English
> with
> the indefinite article, didn't they? They must have been aware of them. So
> how can we account for the fact that they asserted that an indefinite
> translation is wrong based on a rule that was being misapplied? I suspect
> that they didn't actually read Colwell's article themselves, but merely
> assumed that it settled matters because people they trusted claimed that
> it
> settled matters. What the Colwell fiasco taught us is that we should not
> put
> 'scholars' on some pedestal as though they don't put their pants on one
> leg
> at a time like the rest of us. They are people who have presuppositions
> and
> can make embarrassing mistakes, and if we follow them blindly we may
> ultimately share their embarrassment.
>
> Harner: We learned two valuable things from Harner, (i) a definite QEOS at
> John 1:1c would equate the LOGOS with hO QEOS, which leads to modalism (or
> metaphor), and (ii) that PN-V's can be used to highlight the nature of the
> subject. What Harner apparently assumed and didn't prove, is that
> indefinite
> nouns are not a valid tool for highlighting a subject's nature. Harner was
> wrong in this, for indefinite nouns can be used to highlight nature and
> they
> often are. I shared this example last month:
>
> Illustration: A man committed adultery and immediately regretted it. He
> approached his minister and confessed his sin. In the throes of his shame
> and despair over his egregious act he cried out, "I don't know how I could
> have done such a thing". His minister replied, "You failed because you are
> a
> sinner, my son, just as I am".
>
> In context, his minister was not simply placing him in some generic
> category
> of sinners as a purely factual statement that he belonged to said
> category.
> No, he was telling him that he failed because he, like the rest of us, is
> sinful "by nature" as a result of being born from Adam. The minister could
> have used an adjective and said, "you failed because you are sinful", but
> he
> chose instead to employ another tool: an indefinite noun.
>
> Harner noted that when an anarthrous noun is placed before the verb
> qualitativeness becomes "more important" then whether the noun is definite
> or indefinite, so that the noun's sense is "primarily" qualitative. Notice
> that he doesn't say that the noun is not definite or indefinite, but that
> qualitativeness is "more important" then whether it is definite or
> indefinite. In the above example, "sinner" fits this description. In
> context
> it is the man's sinful nature that the minister is focusing on, and so
> this
> qualitativeness is "more important" then whether "a sinner" is definite or
> indefinite. Yet, that doesn't change the fact that "a sinner" is
> indefinite.
>
> Dixon: Paul's thesis did an excellent job of demonstrating the problems
> with
> Colwell's Rule and the misapplication of it. He also observed that any
> noun
> that is not definite is "technically" indefinite (see p. 9 of his thesis).
> But he separates the indefinite nouns that are used qualitatively from the
> other indefinite nouns "for expediency" (again, see p. 9), and proceeds
> under the assumption
> that definite, indefinite, and qualitative are exclusive categories.
> Clearly
> he and Wallace are not in agreement on this crucial point.
>
> I question Dixon's approach because the assumption that D, Q, & I are
> exclusive categories is not developed or substantiated, yet it is the very
> basis for claiming that certain PN-V's are not indefinite. According to
> Dixon, there
> is only one lonely indefinite noun in all of John's Gospel, and I find
> that
> rather difficult to believe. Note the following PN-V's from John (I
> apologize that I didn't have time to include the greek):
>
> 4:19 "Sir, I see that you are _a prophet_" (NRSV)
> 6:70 "one of you is _a devil_" (NRSV)
> 8:34 "everyone who commits sin is _a slave_ to sin" (NRSV)
> 8:44 "He was _a murderer_ from the beginning" (NRSV)
> 8:44 "for he is _a liar_ and the father of lies" (NRSV)
> 8:48 "you are _a Samaritan_" (NRSV)
> 9:17 "He is _a prophet_" (NRSV)
> 9:24 "this man is _a sinner_" (NRSV)
> 9:25 "he is _a sinner_" (NRSV)
> 10:1 "anyone who. climbs in by another way is _a thief_" (NRSV)
> 10:13 "_a hired hand_ does not care for the sheep" (NRSV)
> 12:6 "he was _a theif_" (NRSV)
> 18:35 "I am not _a Jew_, am I?" (NRSV)
> 18:37a "So are you _a king_? (NRSV)
> 18:37b "You say that I am _a king_." (NRSV)
>
> According to Dixon, none of the above PN-V's are indefinite! If you find
> such a position compelling, then can you explain precisely why the above
> translations don't accurately convey the sense of the underlying Greek?
> According to what demonstrably valid analytical process will you test your
> conclusion to verify it's correctness?
>
> Sincerely,
> Sean Kasabuske
>
>
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