[B-Greek] Hebrews 1:1-2 EN
Elizabeth Kline
kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Tue Dec 18 16:34:09 EST 2007
On Dec 17, 2007, at 10:29 PM, George F Somsel wrote:
> Consider the case of Mt 2.1
>
> Τοῦ δὲ Ἰησοῦ γεννηθέντος ἐν
> Βηθλέεμ τῆς Ἰουδαίας ἐν ἡμέραις
> Ἡρῴδου τοῦ βασιλέως
>
> TOU DE IHSOU GENNHQENTOS EN BHQLEEM THS IOUDAIAS EN hHMERAIS
> hHRWiDOU TOU BASILEWS
>
> Here we have the same preposition repeated as in Heb 1.1-2 about
> which you ask. Would you understand the first EN in the same
> manner as the second?
>
>
> george
> gfsomsel
Agreed.
Jim Alderman wrote:
> With both occurrences of EN being in the same sentence, both with the
> dative, both following the same verb root and hence resulting in
> such a
> parallel construction ...
HEB. 1:1 POLUMERWS KAI POLUTROPWS PALAI hO QEOS LALHSAS TOIS PATRASIN
EN TOIS PROFHTAIS 2 EP' ESCATOU TWN hHMERWN TOUTWN ELALHSEN hHMIN EN
hUIWi, hON EQHKEN KLHRONOMON PANTWN, DI' hOU KAI EPOIHSEN TOUS AIWNAS:
Parallelism in both the Heb. Bible and the GNT is an exceedingly
complex phenomenon demonstrating a diverse variety of semantic
patterns. The parallel constituents may contain almost any
combination of similar and contrastive terms. In Hebrews 1:1-2 we
have one similar term hO QEOS LALHSAS ... [hO QEOS] ELALHSEN. There
is a temporal contrast PALAI ... EP' ESCATOU TWN hHMERWN TOUTWN, a
contrast between TOIS PATRASIN ... hHMIN, and a contrast between EN
TOIS PROFHTAIS and EN hUIWi. It might be argued that the plural
datives TOIS PATRASIN ... hHMIN have the same semantic function; the
semantic value of the datives being constrained by the verb LALHSAS/
ELALHSEN. But the EN + dative (personal) used with the arguments TOIS
PROFHTAIS and hUIWi presents us with different situation. The
referent of one of these terms hUIWi is, throughout the book of
Hebrews, represented in a series of contrastive relationships where
the difference between the contrastive terms is the main point of the
argument. That combined with the well known semantic flexibility of
EN + dative should give us a reason to pause before hammering these
two expressions into an identical semantic mold.
OFF TOPIC:
Contemplating the potential significance of the expression hO
QEOS ... ELALHSEN hHMIN EN hUIWi, I seem to recall K.Barth wrote
about a million words on this topic. None of which is to be discussed
in this forum.
Elizabeth Kline
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