[B-Greek] 2 Cor. 1:9 Death sentence currently in place?
Paul Toseland
toseland at blueyonder.co.uk
Fri Jan 5 06:50:25 EST 2007
Webb,
According to both Robertson and BDF, perfects were occasionally used in
narrative for aorists. BDF 343.2 lists ESCHKA in 2 Cor 2:13 as a clear
instance, though in this instance Robertson is not so sure (ATR 900f;
cf. 897).
As for APOKRIMA TOU QANATOU, btw, it might mean 'the answer, "Death",'
rather than 'death sentence'. Paul had enquired (of God?) what the
outcome would be, and though he had not yet received an official
reasponse, he was sure of the reply: he would die. In that case, the
confidence he now expresses that God will again be rescue him (1:10)
would imply that in 1:9 ESCHKAMEN is in fact equivalent to an aorist. So
I don't think the issue can be settled without detailed exegesis.
Paul Toseland
Original message, Thu Jan 4 16:23:00 EST 2007:
2 Cor. 1:9
ALLA AUTOI EN hEAUTOIS TO APOKRIMA TOU QANATOU ESCHKAMEN hINA MH PEPOIQOTES
WMEN EF hEAUTOIS ALL EPI TWi QEWi TWi EGEIRONTI TOUS NEKROUS
But we have a death sentence inside ourselves so that we won't have
confidence in ourselves but in God, who raises the dead.
Or, more naturally rendered:
But if we have a death sentence inside ourselves, it's so that we won't have
confidence in ourselves but in God, who raises the dead.
The translations I've looked at treat ESCHKAMEN as pluperfect in force,
locating the sense of a death sentence in the past, during the time of the
severe trouble Paul refers to in v. 8. But I'm not so sure. Perhaps Paul
sees the sword of Damocles as continuously hanging over his head, which
would match what I have come to understand about the force of the perfect,
and would match Paul's statement that God rescued and continues to rescue us
(or, following different mss, will rescue us), v. 10. Or does ECW follow a
non-standard pattern in the perfect?
Interestingly, Lattimore takes a different approach: "For all we could do,
we would have got the death sentence; so that our trust had to be not in
ourselves but in God, who raises the dead".
Webb Mealy
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