[B-Greek] Rom 4:1

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Jul 21 07:08:14 EDT 2009


On Jul 21, 2009, at 5:58 AM, George F Somsel wrote:

> 4 Τί οὖν ἐροῦμεν εὑρηκέναι Ἀβραὰμ  
> τὸν προπάτορα ἡμῶν κατὰ σάρκα;2εἰ  
> γὰρ Ἀβραὰμ ἐξ ἔργων ἐδικαιώθη,  
> ἔχει καύχημα, ἀλλʼ οὐ πρὸς θεόν.
> TI OUN EROUMEN hEURHKENAI ABRAAM TON PROPATORA hHMWN KATA SARKA? 2   
> EI GAR ABRAAM EC ERGWN EDIKAIWQH, EXEI KAUXHMA, ALL' OU PROS QEON.
>
> The solution which you propose fails in my estimation precisely  
> because there is no real connection between v. 1 and what follows  
> (which I include above).  I would not read ABRAAM either as the  
> subject of the infinitive nor as its object.  Instead I would  
> understand it as an accusative of respect.  It would then read,  
> "What shall we say we have found with respect to our physical  
> ancestor Abraham?  For if Abraham was justified by works, he has a  
> cause for boasting, but not about God."
>  george
> gfsomsel

There are lots of proposed solutions to a text that has evidently  
seemed problematic to many -- and proposals also of what Paul ought to  
have written if he had been expressing his meaning as we would have  
expressed it if we could write better Greek than Paul. We don't agree  
about what Paul meant, but we seem to agree that he might have  
expressed his meaning more clearly.

An accusative of respect? See BDF §160; Wallace, p. 203 offers as a  
key to identifying the Accusative of respect, "Before the accusative  
substantive you can usually supply the words with reference to, or  
concerning. The usage is rare enough in the NT that this should be  
employed as a last resort—that is, only after other categories are  
exhausted." Why, it seems to me that we might almost speak of this as  
an "Aporetic Accusative." I would have expected the sense, "with  
respect to our physical ancestor Abraham" to be expressed (I'll play  
the game here too) by PERI ABRAAM TOU PROPATOROS hHMWN KATA SARKA.

It is not true, by the way, that hEURISKW is found in the perfect  
tense only in this passage  (it's the only one in a Pauline letter to  
be sure, but the sample drawn from is rather small):
John 1:41 	εὑρήκαμεν τὸν Μεσσίαν,  [hEURHKAMEN  
TON MESSIAN]1:45 ὃν ἔγραψεν Μωϋσῆς ...   
εὑρήκαμεν, [hON EGRAYEN MWUSHS ... hEURHKAMEN],  
Ἐχάρην λίαν ὅτι εὕρηκα ἐκ τῶν  
τέκνων σου περιπατοῦντας ἐν  
ἀληθείᾳ [ECARHN LIAN hOTI hEURHKA EK TWN TEKNWN SOU  
PERIPATOUNTAS EN ALHQEIAi],  Rev. 3:2 οὐ γὰρ εὕρηκά  
σου τὰ ἔργα πεπληρωμένα ἐνώπιον τοῦ  
θεοῦ μου [OU GAR hEURHKA SOU TA ERGA PEPLHRWMENA ENWPION TOU  
QEOU MOU].

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



> ________________________________
> From: Iver Larsen <iver_larsen at sil.org>
> To: Yancy Smith <yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net>; Oun Kwon <kwonbbl at gmail.com 
> >; greek B-Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 12:58:00 AM
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Rom 4:1
> Sent: 20. juli 2009 23:34
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Rom 4:1
>
>
> The only analysis that makes sense to me is to take the sentence as  
> a question
> consisting of two clauses where the second clause is the complement  
> to EROUMEN:
> "What, then, shall we say that Abraham, our human ancestor, has  
> discovered?"
> Paul is here speaking to Jews who put a lot of emphasis on doing the  
> "works of
> the Torah", but - he tells them - our venerable forefather Abraham  
> had already
> discovered (only here is the verb found in the perfect tense) that  
> he was
> accepted as being in right standing with God because of his faith,  
> apart from
> works (CWRIS ERGWN, v. 6).
>
> I am not afraid of challenging traditional analyses and exegeses,  
> but one must
> make a solid case for it, and neither Lenski, Hays nor Wright have  
> been able to
> do so.
>
> I have now read the thread on this topic from October 2001, where  
> Lenski is
> cited as supporting your number 3. His arguments are quite  
> unconvincing, and
> Steve Lo Vullo made some good points in his responses on the list.
>
> Iver Larsen






More information about the B-Greek mailing list