[B-Greek] Eph 1:9: Going beyond grammar?
Kenneth Litwak
javajedi2 at yahoo.com
Thu Aug 13 00:05:55 EDT 2009
Eph 1:9 reads in part
KATA THN EUDOKIAN AUTOU HN PROEQETO EN AUTWi
This clause is one of the many examples in Paul of EN + some word in teh Dative, usually AUTWi. I notice that many translations render virtually all such constructions as "in him," e.g., the NASB. That is possible and unless we are prepared to render virtually all such instances by a dative of means, which could be appropriate some of the time, I am wondering if there's something beyond the simple identification of such a construction as, say, a locative use of the dative. I chose this example not quite at random but close. What I'm interested in is there something beyond the simple identification of the syntax here that might tell us what Paul actually means. How do you purpose something in someone?
Col 2:11 provides a similar example EN (W you were circumcised. What does the dative signify beyond location and what could Paul possibly mean by saying that an event happened within some other individual?
That is, after we've translated such phrases, I'm hoping there was something more that would have clued the original audience into what this construction actually signifried, which is a different question from how it should be translated.
I am assuming of course that the small prepositional phrases and the like, at least in the epistles, have significance, even if meaning is really established at higher level of disocurse.
Ken Litwak
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list