[B-Greek] Rom 4:1

Yancy Smith yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net
Mon Jul 20 14:51:03 EDT 2009


His reading is not so peculiar to him. Richard Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, p. 54 has, "The RSV translates Rom. 4:1 as follows, 'What then shall we say about Abraham our forefather according to the flesh?' Such a rendering, however, runs recklessly over the Greek text. For a formidable series of reasons having to do with the manuscript evidence, with Greek syntax, and with Pauline style, the verse must instead be translated, 'What then shall we say? Have we found Abraham to be our forefather according to the flesh?' The answer demanded by this rhetorical question, as by other similar questions in Romans (3:5; 6:1; 7:7; 9:14) is an emphatic negative." Hays gives a more technical explanation and defense of this reading in "'Have We Found Abraham To Be Our Forefather According to the Flesh?': A Reconsideration of Rom. 4.1," NTS 27 (1985): 76-98.

Of course context is everything here, and a clear understanding of what Paul is arguing and how he is arguing it should guide and shape how we disambiguate the grammar.

-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Carl Conrad
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 1:28 PM
To: Iver Larsen
Cc: BG
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Rom 4:1


On Jul 20, 2009, at 1:21 PM, Iver Larsen wrote:

> While reading N.T. Wright I came to his peculiar understanding of  
> Rom 4:1.
>
> The text is:
>
> Τί οὖν ἐροῦμεν εὑρηκέναι Ἀβραὰμ  
> τὸν προπάτορα ἡμῶν κατὰ σάρκα;
> TI OUN EROUMEN hEURHKENAI ABRAAM TON PROPATORA hHMWN KATA SARKA?
>
> He says that the following translation "works extremely well with  
> the Greek":
> "What then shall we say? Have we found Abraham to be our forefather  
> according to
> the flesh?"
>
> Can anyone explain to me how he can suggest "we" as implicit subject  
> for the
> perfect infinitive? I assume that Wright is not a member of b-Greek,  
> but maybe
> some one else has accepted his exegesis and can defend it?
>
> How can he cut the sentence into two with an indicative form of  
> "found" when the
> infinitive depends on EIPON? And how does that work extremely well  
> with the
> Greek?

I would not advocate that reading of the text, but I see no reason why  
the text couldn't be punctuated (as a question) after TI OUN or after  
EROUMEN..
TI OUN as a stand-alone introduction to a rhetorical question is by no  
means uncommon (BDAG 1.a.β.‏ה‎.  elliptical expressions:). If  
after EROUMEN, one would still say, I think, that an elliptical  
repeated EROUMEN governs the infinitive hEURHKENAI, no subject of the  
infinitive needing to be stated since it's identical with that of  
EROUMEN. Moreover, I see no real objection to understanding TON  
PROPATORA hHMWN KATA SARKA as predicative to ABRAAM.

I would suppose that his version, "What then shall we say? Have we  
found Abraham to be our forefather according to the flesh?", is not  
intended to be literal, a literal version being rather, "What then  
shall we say? [Shall we say that] we have found Abraham [to be] our  
forefather according to the flesh?"

I don't see any reason why that isn't a legitimate way of punctuating  
and reading the text, although, as I stated at the outset, it is not a  
way I would advocate.

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



---
B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
B-Greek mailing list
B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek




More information about the B-Greek mailing list