[B-Greek] Col. 2:11 Going beyond grammar?

Oun Kwon kwonbbl at gmail.com
Sat Aug 15 20:58:29 EDT 2009


On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 3:00 PM, yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net
<yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> Iver and George, SHALOM!
>        I think this passage is a prime example of the need for contextual
> information and the situation of the larger co-text to make sense of
> the grammar. And, again, I believe that the way the text in currently
> translated in, say, the NLT is more a result of the desire to
> contextualize Colossians 2:11 to something modern readers will be more
> familiar and comfortable with than anything resembling an attempt at
> understanding the original meaning of this verse in context. Iver
> seems to think that my interpretation of Col. 2:11 is novel and,
> perhaps idiosyncratic, but that is really far from the case. Perhaps
> it is just that we are reading different things.
>        First I think it appropriate to clarify that recent exegesis has
> suggested that circumcision in Colossians 2:11 is a figure for union
> with Christ in his death (see below, Ken L. Berry's comment), and that
> baptismal language does not begin until verse 12. Further, that the
> patristic sources do not suggest the understanding of circumcision as
> metaphorical of baptism until Cyprian, Augustine and Chrysostom in the
> 4th century. <

<clipped>

> Colossians 2:11-12 speaks of circumcision, burial and resurrection.

<clipped>

> In line with this the "flesh" seems to them to have meant the lower side
> of human nature, including the body, and by following their detailed
> regulations they believed they could strip off" the fleshy nature and
> thereby be in a position to receive visions. This stripping off of the
> flesh is unlikely to have included actual circumcision, but
> 'circumcision' may have been used as a technical term for the
> preparatory and initiatory rites.

<clipped>

> Yancy Smith, PhD

Hello there,

At the risk of going beyond the limit of the list, if I may add one.

Why don't we simply take it (circumcision) just as it is to see what
it stands for in the text, rather than all fanciful (pseudo)-scholar
expounding?

It should be simply an ethnic marker for Israelites. Here with the
phrase 'Circumcision of-Christ', it should be in our text no more than
a figurative for 'seal of being believer in Christ'.

I don't see how one can come up with a picture of stripping flesh
nature (off our body), etc.? I don't see any prepratory/initiatory
rites in the N.T. other than water baptism for the believers.

Oun Kwon.



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