[B-Greek] TO MH PALIN EN LUPHi PROS hUMAS ELQEIN (2 Cor. 2:1)
Carlton Winbery
winberycl at earthlink.net
Thu Jan 11 15:51:05 EST 2007
Webb Mealy wrote;
>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.
>EKRINA GAR EMAUTWi TOUTO, TO MH PALIN EN LUPHi PROS hUMAS ELQEIN (2 Cor.
2:1)
I think that just looking at this verse # 2 is to be preferred. The
pronoun TOUTO designates what Paul decided and its antecedent is TO .
. . ELQEIN and that intervenes to further define what exactly Paul
decided. "not again to come to you in sorrow." MH PALIN is adverbial
relating to the infinitive. EN LUPHi indicates manner also relating
to the infinitive. The task of determining how many and in what order
Paul wrote to the Corinthians is difficult, but I do not think that #
1 is a possible translation of the verse. PALIN seems clearly to
refer to a previous EN LUPHi visit.
Carlton Winbery
--
Carlton L. Winbery
Retired Professor of Religion
Louisiana College
318-448-6103
winberycl at earthlink.net
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