[B-Greek] EINAI TON CRISTON IHSOUN, Act 18:5
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 13 14:06:01 EST 2007
Ὡς δὲ κατῆλθον ἀπὸ τῆς Μακεδονίας ὅ τε Σιλᾶς καὶ ὁ Τιμόθεος, συνείχετο τῷ λόγῳ ὁ Παῦλος διαμαρτυρόμενος τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις εἶναι τὸν χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν.
hWS DE KATHLQON APO THS MAKEDONIAS hO TE SILAS KAI hO TIMOQEOS, SUNEIXETO TWi LOGWi hO PAULOS DIAMARTUROMENOS TOIS IOUDAIOIS EINAI TON XRISTON IHSOUN
I would, on the contrary, take TON XRISTON as being the subject of the infinitive EINAI. Note that in Jn 1.1 we read
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
EN ARXHi HN hO LOGOS, KAI hO LOGOS HN PROS TON QEON, KAI QEOS HN hO LOGOS.
In this passage it is virtually universally accepted that hO LOGOS is the subject with QEOS serving as the pred nom of the equative HN. Similarly in 1 Jn 4.16
Ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν
hO QEOS AGAPH ESTIN
it is hO QEOS which is the subject with AGAPH as the pred nom. I would be inclined to be of the opinion that the articular form designates the subject.
It would seem that what was intended was to state that "The Messiah was Jesus." In the context it would seem to make perfectly good sense. In a coversation with Jews one would quite naturally speak of the known factor, the expectation of a Messiah, and then proceed to the specification of the one who fulfilled this role. It would seem to me that the context determines the matter here.
george
gfsomsel
Therefore, O faithful Christian, search for truth, hear truth,
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
defend the truth till death.
- Jan Hus
_________
----- Original Message ----
From: Webb Mealy <webb at selftest.net>
To: Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
Cc: greek B-Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 1:39:51 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] EINAI TON CRISTON IHSOUN, Act 18:5
Dear Carl,
You wrote:
'My own subjective choice is "that Jesus is the Christ" --
and I guess the criterion I prefer to go with is that the predicate
term is the one marked by the article.'
I reply:
This raises the question, how would it have been phrased differently if the
author had intended to say, "that the Messiah/Christ is Jesus"?
If it is the article that sways it for you in the direction of Jesus being
the subject/topic, I don't see how you can take out the article in front of
CRISTOS to swap the polarity, because then it raises the question, "That
Christ Jesus is what??" (see Acts 24:24 for CRISTOS IHSOUS functioning as a
name or at least with CRISTOS being used as an appellative to IHSOUS).
To my eye, both removing the article from CRISTOS and adding it to IHSOUS
also fails to reverse the polarity:
To me, EINAI CRISTON TON IHSOUN and EINAI TON IHSOUN CRISTON both say,
"Jesus is Messiah". Or do they?
Also, intriguingly, see Acts 3:20, which does seem to assert of the expected
Messiah that that figure is Jesus:
[hO KURIOS] APOSTEILHi TON PROKECEIRISMENON hUMIN CRISTON IHSOUN
I still think the more definite/specific nominal element automatically
stands first in line to be subject (or topic). Which would speak in favor of
Jesus being the subject unless something told us otherwise. So what kind of
counter-weight would be required to overcome that expectation?
I'm absolutely betwixt and between on this.
Webb Mealy
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