[B-Greek] Englishing EN + dative of the person (was "Eph 1:9: Going beyond grammar?")

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Thu Aug 13 08:14:16 EDT 2009


On Aug 13, 2009, at 12:05 AM, Kenneth Litwak wrote:

>   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.

This appears to me to be a translation question rather than a  
grammatical one.

George has already cited the relevant BDAG section on this usage (the  
whole nine yards!). I don't think that the usage is generally  
misunderstood, but anyone seriously engaged in reading and/or  
exegeting the GNT ought to study carefully the entire BDAG article on  
EN -- and then look carefully also at the 54 hits brought up by a  
search for EN in Louw & Nida. The range of usages of EN in NT Koine  
clearly goes far beyond any simple locative and instrumental functions  
of earlier classical Attic.

So what does "going beyond grammar" mean? I don't think it's a matter  
of understanding the usage. I think rather that it is a translation  
question. Ken's question in formulated in such a way as to suggest  
that "in him" implies either instrumental or locative usage. I don't  
think that the translators who used English "in" to represent the  
Greek EN were necessarily identifying the usage  as instrumental or  
locative, but it must be admitted (and here I agree with Ken) that  
English "in" with an object does not signify any particular meaning  
very well, e.g. the meanings to which George's cited section of the  
BDAG entry on EN point.

The real question then, it seems to me, is: Is there a better way to  
convey the sense of EN with the dative in these expressions like EN  
CRISTWi or EN AUTWi or EN hWi -- expressions all involving a person,  
ordinarily Jesus Christ? I do think that the phrase "in Christ" as  
commonly used, say, as an epistolary signature phrase, doesn't really  
communicate anything clearly, however pious it may appear to sound.  
Does the user of such an epistolary signature phrase mean by using it  
that he/she shares with his/her addressee(s) or is he/she simply  
affirming something about his/her own faith (and is that consistent  
with Biblical usage)?

I've often thought that "in relationship with" would be much more  
accurate for this usage of EN with a dative of the person, but that's  
five syllables, which doesn't seem very economical. How would a simple  
"with" work? EN hWi or EN AUTWi appears 72x in the Pauline letters, of  
which no less than 30 are in Ephesians. Would "with Him" or "with   
whom" sound any less vague than "in Him" and "in whom"?

I'm cc'ing this to Wayne Leman; it seems to me that this has to have  
come up on the B-Translation list at least once and probably has been  
discussed on Better Bibles Blog also, but I don't actually recall;  
perhaps Wayne can give us some guidance or point us to some archives.

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






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