[B-Greek] TO MH PALIN EN LUPHi PROS hUMAS ELQEIN (2 Cor. 2:1)
Webb
webb at selftest.net
Thu Jan 11 00:29:57 EST 2007
During a rather complicated portion of his personal history, Paul writes to
the Corinthians,
EKRINA GAR EMAUTWi TOUTO, TO MH PALIN EN LUPHi PROS hUMAS ELQEIN (2 Cor.
2:1)
On the face of it, not taking into considerations any assumptions at all
about how many visits or how many painful visits Paul had made to them
previous to this statement, does this appear to mean that
1. Paul decided he wouldn't visit the Corinthians again, because he sensed
that this new visit would be painful,
Or,
2. Upon reflecting on a prior painful visit, Paul decided he wouldn't make a
subsequent painful visit
I'd always assumed it meant the latter, but I'm starting to come across
contextual reasons for thinking it might make more sense if it meant the
former. So my question is, is the former grammatically possible? If it's
possible, is it the more natural, or the less natural, of these two possible
interpretations, if one did not already assume on the basis of information
taken from elsewhere that Paul had made a total of three visits?
Webb Mealy
p.s. there was a discussion on the list about this verse in 2004, but I
didn't find it easy to understand.
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