[B-Greek] Word order in 2 Cor 5:19
Elizabeth Kline
kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Sun May 13 16:59:21 EDT 2007
The text again:
2COR. 5:18 TA DE PANTA EK TOU QEOU TOU KATALLAXANTOS hHMAS hEAUTWi
DIA CRISTOU KAI DONTOS hHMIN THN DIAKONIAN THS KATALLAGHS, 19 hWS
hOTI QEOS HN EN CRISTWi KOSMON KATALLASSWN hEAUTWi, MH LOGIZOMENOS
AUTOIS TA PARAPTWMATA AUTWN KAI QEMENOS EN hHMIN TON LOGON THS
KATALLAGHS.
On May 13, 2007, at 3:19 AM, Kimmo Huovila wrote:
> If we see it as a periphrastic verb, why are there two constituents
> (EN
> CRISTWi, KOSMON) in between? In other words, what does that word order
> signal?
As for the splitting of the periphrastic verbal construction, I don't
think that is anything unusual. Moving EN CRISTWi toward the front
probably indicates focus as Carl suggested. Semantically EN CRISTWi
appears to function like DIA CRISTOU in v18. You asked if EN CRISTWi
was topicalized. I don't see that as a possibility. Perhaps we are
using the terminology in a different way. If we were to treat 19a as
a topic-comment construction the QEOS would be the topic. I am not at
all certain that the topic-comment framework is particularly well
suited to this passage.
Anyway, I should also say that an examination of spilt periphrastic
verbal constructions in earlier greek texts might lead one to think
that rhetoric was the primary driving force here. There is nothing
particularly noteworthy about placing predicate arguments between the
EIMI form and the participle.
Elizabeth Kline
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