[B-Greek] PISTIS, faith or faithfulness
Danny Dixon
BereanDAD2003 at yahoo.com
Sun May 13 13:34:24 EDT 2007
Mitch:
There is much to be said about author intent with respect to some
terminology. It would be much too rigid to say that an author was
not able*, because of the restrictions of lexicography, *to be able to
so word a passage as to allow for the reader to think, "Well, maybe
he meant for us to see both ideas (or more) here." One writer in
the forum asked for a particular text that you might be referring to.
I am sure that that question was posed because in trying to see how
one should look at grammar and definitions, one is often--should I
say *usually?--*bound by the limitations of the contexts affecting the
passage in question where the particular usages are to be considered.
Sometimes it is a matter of the theology of a passage that will affect
the terms used and how they should be read. And while the goal is
to be completely objective, often one's theological perspective nudges
him or her to choose one option over another. Or, if one doesn't care
about theology at all, to irresponsibly say that it really doesn't matter.
Well, actually, it can matter quite a bit that a person will allow a theo-
logical presupposition to govern a choice, rather than allow a passage
that in and of itself, even in its own context, is rather vague.
I think about *pistis* as it may be used in Colossians 2:12, for example.
Is Paul saying that in Christ his readers "were also raised together
through the faith of/in [periphrastic options] the work of God . . .," or
should it be that he is saying that they "were also raised together through
the faithfulness/trustworthiness of God's work"? A theological case
could be made for either one* in this particular context* depending on
which portions of the immediate and broader considerations of what
Paul has been talking about from as far back as, say, the first part of
the chapter. Some use the former to say one's individual faith (*pistis*) at
the
raising after the *suntaphentes autw en tw baptismw *at the first part
of the verse, or one can say that the last thing that should be done is
to stress anything done by man given all that God is said to have done
in his own faithfulness (*pistis*) to reveal clearly what had been a secret
(*musterion)about* Christ to the world, filling the church and removing
(circumcising) the human nature (*sarx*) from them.
I think the point of this forum is to ask the questions like the one you
posed, and take on the responsibility to see the richness of possibilities
present in the Greek text that are sometimes there; and at the very
least see how the legitimate possibilities should keep us all humble
and mutually respectful of one another who share a host of perspectives
about the grammar and lexicography based on a rich host of background
understandings that we bring to the text.
Danny Andre' Dixon
Fort Stockton, TX
Mitch LarramoreDate: Sat, 12 May 2007 14:15:31 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mitch Larramore <mitchlarramore at yahoo.com >
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] PISTIS, faith or faithfulness
To: "Bryant J. Williams III" <bjwvmw at com-pair.net >, B Greek
<b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: < 20070512211531.39383.qmail at web37115.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
My question is not concerning a specific usage, but
more general in scope. When one comes across PISTIS,
for example, a word that can be either Active (faith)
or Passive (faithfulness), can one understand BOTH
semantics of a particular verb in a particular context
or do you have to go with one or the other?
Mitch Larramore
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