[B-Greek] Phil 2:6 Concessive or causal participle

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Mon Oct 20 17:36:35 EDT 2008


On Oct 20, 2008, at 4:24 AM, Norman Wood wrote:

> Phil 2:6 has
> "hOS EN MORFH QEOU hUPARCWN OUC hARPAGMON hHGHSATO TO EINAI ISA QEOU"
>
> Wallace describes this occurence of hUPARCWN as concessive p634Greek  
> Grammar Beyond the Basics.
> However O'Brien (NIGTC)p 214 argues that this ought not to be  
> rendered as concessive, but as causal. Could someone offer  
> suggestions on how to approach this problem?

Norman,

A cognitive approach would probably reject both suggestions. Koine  
Greek is well supplied with particles, adverbs and prepositions to  
explicitly mark causal relations. If Paul intended for us to read this  
as causal why didn't he use one of these? Both the causal and  
concessive options are inferential extensions of the text. There are  
good reasons not to hard wire inferential extensions into a  
translation. If you would like to read about this take a look at the  
works Ernst-August Gutt [1].

I would agree with Alford and Meyer who reject both options. The  
concessive reading is the more attractive of the two but it isn't  
explicit and it isn't necessary. If you hard wire the concessive then  
you shut down other inferential options, which are live options and  
should not be shut down.


Elizabeth Kline

[1]Ernst-August Gutt
http://www.sil.org/SIL/roster/gutt_ernst-august.htm



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