[B-Greek] hHMEIS DE hWS ADOKIMOI WMEN, 2 Cor. 13:7
Paul Toseland
toseland at blueyonder.co.uk
Thu Feb 8 12:20:02 EST 2007
Webb,
>From my viewpoint - and I am among those who believe 2 Corinthians to be a unity - Carl's suggestion makes very good sense, not only in terms of the immediate context, but also in terms of [my understanding of] the sequence of events that led up to its composition, and of Paul's ongoing dialogue with the church.Thank you for eliciting this most helpful respopnse! :)
Paul Toseland
___
Carl wrote:
Everybody's jumping to respond to this, huh? I'm the first, after 12
hours have passed! I suppose that may mean that others are every bit
as uncomfortable with this passage as are Webb and myself. Well,
inasmuch as "comments" have been requested, that's what I'll offer.
In the first place, it is my conviction that, important as this
letter is for so many reasons, its interpretation should remain open
to revision by any serious interpreter unless and until a whole slew
of questions have been resolved. That the letter is a composite of
multiple letters seems to me a given: that raises the question of its
composition history and also the question of what was said by the
opposing party to whom these letters are responses. If one doesn't
think this is a composite letter, then other questions will come up.
The sum of it all is that one of the major problems of the letter to
the Galatians (What did the other party say to evoke the response we
read? What is to be understood between the lines of the present
communication?) multiplied "to the power of X" (yes, where I live in
the mountains I must rely on satellite radio because I can't even get
a cell phone or wireless internet yet).
It seems to me that the crux of the question in this particular text
is the intended sense of DOKIMOS. I think that BDAG is probably right
in its listing of the range of possible senses:
1. pert. to being genuine on the basis of testing, approved (by
test), tried and true, genuine
2. pert. to being considered worthy of high regard, respected, esteemed
3. pert. to being valuable, precious
I am inclined to think that sense #2 is closer to what's meant in 2
Cor 13:7 than the others -- that our concern here is with "face" --
with how one "looks" to others with whom one is dealing. I also am
inclined to think that the adjective is close in sense to a usage of
the verb DOKEW that we see in Gal 2:6-7 APO DE TWN DOKOUNTWN EINAI TI
-- hOPOIOI POTE HSAN OUDEN MOI DIAFEREI; PROSWPON [hO] QEOS OU
LAMBANEI -- EMOI GAR hOI DOKOUNTES OUDEN PROSANEQENTO ...
I think there's almost a colloquial force to the adjective DOKIMOS
and its opposed ADOKIMOS -- not in other NT instances where these
words appear, but in this particular passage. And it seems to me too
that the hWS that qualifies ADOKIMOI in the final clause of our
passage weakens -- a little -- the negative force of the adjective:
"somewhat faceless" or "somewhat out of favor."
In that light, I suggest (very, very tentatively):
Text: EUCOMEQA DE PROS TON QEON MH POIHSAI hUMAS KAKON MHDEN OUC hINA
hHMEIS DOKIMOI FANWMEN, ALL hINA hUMEIS TO KALON POIHTE hHMEIS DE
hWS ADOKIMOI WMEN
"And I entreat you by god not to do anything wrong, not so I myself
can save face, but so that YOU yourselves do the right thing and I
lose face to some extent.
I'm assuming that the hINA clauses here really are all purpose
clauses, although it seems to me that OUC hINA ... WMEN may be more a
matter of result (NT Koine Greek has more or less erased any clear
distinction between purpose and result constructions). I think that
my version above can be read with that want of distinction between
purpose and result evident.
End of comment.
Carl W. Conrad
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