[B-Greek] hO and TH in Gal 2.20b

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri Apr 4 06:10:51 EDT 2008


On Apr 4, 2008, at 12:21 AM, Daniel Rodriguez wrote:

> Dear Greeksters,
>
> I've got a question concerning Gal 2.20b. The NRSV translates,  
> "...And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son  
> of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." I do not think this  
> depicts the syntax of the text. I think one (actually two) of the  
> keys to understanding this is understanding the hO and TH. How do  
> y'all take it? Based on my short time reading Greek, here's a short  
> syntactical explanation. I would appreaciate all comments.
>
> (hO) DE shows the subject has switched back to EGW as in v19a  
> (Wallace 211). This view takes the HO as masculine nominative as  
> opposed to neuter accusative (from older pronominal forms) like  
> Accordance marks it (BDF 251). NUN modifies the 1st ZW temporally.  
> EN SARKI is a prepositional phrase adjunct to 1st ZW. EN PISTEI is a  
> prepositional phrase adjunct to the 2nd ZW. This creates a small  
> chiastic structure VP+PP//PP+VP. TH is a dative direct object  
> functioning pronominally. It points to the implicit life lived in  
> the verb ZW (BDF 154). I believe this use of TH is evidence for  
> universal grammar, a syntactic phenomena generative grammarians call  
> "empty category" (Haegeman-Gueron 34), which should not be confused  
> with the other phenomena of ellipsis. TOU UIOU TOU QEOU modifies the  
> implicit life lived. The remainder of the verse is a genitive clause  
> which sits in apposition to the genitive clause TOU UIOU TOU QEOU.

I think the understanding expressed here falters under at least two  
fundamentally faulty identifications of the forms.

We really do need the entire relevant Greek text in view:

Gal. 2:20 ζῶ δὲ οὐκέτι ἐγώ, ζῇ δὲ ἐν  
ἐμοὶ Χριστός· ὃ δὲ νῦν ζῶ ἐν σαρκί,  
ἐν πίστει ζῶ τῇ τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ  
τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντός με καὶ παραδόντος  
ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ.  [ZW DE OUKETI EGW, ZHi DE EN  
EMOI CRISTOS, hO\ DE NUN ZW EN SARKI, EN PISTEI ZW THi TOU hUIOU TOU  
QEOU TOU AGAPHSANTOS ME KAI PARADONTOS hEAUTON hUPER EMOU]

(1) You identify hO -- which NA27 prints as a neuter accusative  
relative pronoun with a grave accent on the Omicron -- as a masculine  
nominative; you say this is an older pronominal form and cite BDF  
§251. But BDF §251 points rather to hO DE, hH DE, and hOI DE as  
nominatives in the third person "to mark the continuation of a  
narrative" and notes that this is common "in all the historical  
books." Our text is theological exposition, not historical narrative;  
moreover, you want the hO to be a first person nominative pronoun. (My  
own Accordance, by the way, identifies hO\ as a "neuter singular  
definite relative pronoun" -- which I think is quite correct.) The  
form of the relative pronoun required by your view would necessarily  
be hO\S.

(2) The usage of THi here is much simpler than you are postulating. Of  
what verb do you suppose it is a direct object? ZW? but ZW is  
intransitive. Rather THi is an article linking the entire genitive  
group (TOU hUIOU TOU QEOU TOU AGAPHSANTOS ME KAI PARADONTOS hEAUTON  
hUPER EMOU) to the dative noun PISTEI, which qualifies ZW adverbially:  
How do I live? Wherewith do I live? I live by means of trust. What  
trust? Trust directed toward the Son of God who loved me and gave  
himself for me.


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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