[B-Greek] Eph 2:2 TOU PNEUMATOS (again)

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Thu Feb 15 16:09:45 EST 2007


Rev. Bryant J. Williams III wrote:

[Note: I tried to clean up the line wrapping but may have  error.  
E.Kline]

If laid out correctly, it appears that it is Genitive of Apposition.
EN hAIS POTE PERIEPATHSATE
    KATA TON AIWNA    TOU KOSMOU TOUTOU,
    KATA TON ARCONTA  TOU EXOUSIAS TOU AEROS,
                      TOU PNEUMATOS TOU NUN ENERGOUNTAS
  EN TOIS hUIOISTHS APEIQEIAS (attributive genitive, ATR, p. 497)

Clearly KATA TON AIWNA TOU KOSMOU TOUTOU = KATA TON ARCONTA TOU  
EXOUSIAS TOU
AEROS - TOU PNEUMATOS TOU NUN ENERGOUNTAS.

[end of quote]

I have a problem with stacking TOU PNEUMATOS under TOU EXOUSIAS since  
the relationship between TON ARCONTA and TOU EXOUSIAS seems quite  
different from the relationship between TON ARCONTA and TOU PNEUMATOS.

EPH. 2:2 EN hAIS POTE PERIEPATHSATE KATA TON AIWNA TOU KOSMOU TOUTOU,  
KATA TON ARCONTA THS EXOUSIAS TOU AEROS, TOU PNEUMATOS TOU NUN  
ENERGOUNTOS EN TOIS hUIOIS THS APEIQEIAS:

Is TOU PNEUMATOS co-referential with TON ARCONTA? If it is, then it  
does not fill the same slot as THS EXOUSIAS.



I spent some hours over the last two days in the grammars (all of  
them) reading about the genitive. It seems that what we have is a  
complex system of types and sub-types used to define the behaviour of  
the genitive case, and some authors (one or two) define very specific  
rules concerning very specific subtypes which are essentially beyond  
testing because it is nearly impossible to clearly deliniate a set of  
examples which are beyond all dispute memebers of the subtype for  
which these rules are supposed to be valid. In other words, the whole  
thing is like a house of cards.  This is just an aside.

Elizabeth Kline







More information about the B-Greek mailing list