[B-Greek] Ephesians 2:8 - Anaphoric Use of the Article

Barry nebarry at verizon.net
Tue Jul 21 17:57:07 EDT 2009



--------------------------------------------------
From: <rhutchin at aol.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 3:41 PM
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Ephesians 2:8 - Anaphoric Use of the Article

>
> It's mind boggling to me.  I am amazed that this practice could get 
> started and even more amazed that someone then figured out what was being 
> done.  The source of the comment was Hendricksen's commentary on 
> Ephesians.  It was a cryptic (at least, to me) footnote on Eph 2:8.
>

I am not sure what you mean by "this practice" and so forth, but ok. 
Hendrickson is one commentary I don't have on Ephesians, out of the dozen or 
so that I do have.

>
> You take it back to v 7.  Could it refer back to v 5?  Could it indicate 
> that the writer is now going back to something he had said earlier that he 
> now wants to expand upon?
>

I just checked Hoehner on this passage.  He also calls it anaphoric, and 
sees it going back to verse 5.  Hoehner is awesome, but here I disagree.  I 
think the two articular uses in vss. 7-8 emphasize the concrete fact of 
God's grace, whereas the anarthrous use in vs. 5 emphasizes the instrumental 
function of the grace.  Technically, to be anaphoric, it must be repeated, 
so we have to take it from vs. 7.

>
> The term seems to be completely ignored in the translation of the verse. 
> However, it provides critical information that would seem to be necessary 
> for the reader of a translation to understand what is happening.  Is there 
> some translation of the term, THi, that could be used in some manner to 
> show what is happening or is it simply impossible to translate?<

Well, it's the definite article with an abstract noun, which is optional in 
Greek, and often missing when the noun is used instrumentally, as in vs. 5. 
In English, supplying the article with an abstract noun is not idiomatic, so 
we normally leave it out in English translation.  It's the sort of thing 
that we have to pick up by context in the English translation.

>
> Also, the examples used to illustrate this situation are nothing like what 
> we find here.  The examples use the exact language repeatedly so that it 
> is clear what is being said.  This verse lacks that characteristic.  I 
> find it confusing.<<

It doesn't have to be exactly the same form to be an anaphora, since this is 
an inflected language.  According to the strict literary definition, it's 
not, and until you brought it up, I hadn't really thought of it in that way. 
I sometimes get suspicious of imputing too much value to rhetorical devices, 
especially when, as here, they don't quite fit the standard.  In other 
words, for a rhetorical device to be really effective, it has to be used on 
purpose, and I am not convinced that Paul said "Aha!  Let's use an anaphora 
here... "  :)

N.E. Barry Hofstetter
Adjunct Faculty, Classics @ Montclair
http://www.montclair.edu/
Classics Instructor, The American Academy
http://www.theamericanacademy.net/

And me: http://my.opera.com/barryhofstetter/blog


 




More information about the B-Greek mailing list