[B-Greek] ASQENESTERWi SKEUEI in 1 Peter 3:7
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Thu Jul 23 06:07:25 EDT 2009
On Jul 22, 2009, at 6:02 PM, Mitch Larramore wrote:
> I had only mentioned this post by Mark Wilson as an illustration,
> but one of the reasons I think it is so good is that it rejects the
> earlier commentaries which have obviously been unable to offer any
> explanation. [Also, I don't think you will find a lot of earlier
> extra-biblical Greek examples of this 'weaker SKEUEI.' I would look
> for the nuances of ASQENESTERWi by itself.
>
> But in the immediately preceding verses, Peter is talking about the
> INNER beauty of the woman. The reason I understood Mark to be saying
> the "vulnerability" was 'positive' is because it is being viewed as
> part of the woman's INNER beauty. The woman does not possess a
> weaker 'character' than man, and the focus of a woman's physical
> weakness by most commentaries leads to dead ends. No, I think Mark's
> idea, a bit uncomfortable apparently due to his way of thinking, is
> heading in the right direction.
>
> This is exactly how "break throughs" happen, if you ask me. A guy
> like Mark comes along and redirects our thinking, and then scholars
> come along and do the hard work of perfecting this idea or
> redirecting it into some other direction, but still being carried by
> the original momentum gathered by the out-of-the-box first thinker.
> He had obviously done some groundbreaking work.
Evidently this notion of the adjective ASQENHS having the sense of
"vulnerable" and having a "positive" connotation. I'm rather dubious
about this notion myself. On the one hand, I would agree that
"vulnerable" is one common idea associated with the adjective, but I
question that vulnerability is ever really conceived as something good
in the ancient view. In particular, it seems to me that the notion of
"fragile, delicate femininity" is closer to modern romantic, even
Victorian conceptions of womanhood than to ordinary ancient
sensibilities.
Mitch is right to call attention to the immediately preceding context:
verses 1-6 are addressed to wives and they do explicitly point to
inner beauty, contrasting external sorts of KOSMOS (coiffure, jewelry,
flashy clothes and the like) with hO KRUPTOS THS KARDIAS ANQRWPOS EN
TWi AFQARTWi TOU PRAEWS KAI hHSUCIOU PNEUMATOS (v. 4). But I rather
think that "imperishable gentleness and peaceableness" are viewed as
cultivated traits rather than "natural" feminine attributes. Verse 7,
on the other hand, begins a new exhortation to husbands regarding
behavior toward wives, and here's where we encounter the phrase
ASQENESTERWi SKEUEI. Mitch suggests that in researching the adjective
ASQENHS we should ignore the word SKEUOS and focus on the adjective
alone, but I rather think that the word SKEUOS has much to do with how
we can understand the adjective ASQENHS when used with it; SKEUOS
means, fundamentally, "utensil." BDAG offers as the first sense, "a
material object used to meet some need in an occupation or other
responsibility" and a third sense, with reference to a person, "a
human being exercising a function, instrument, vessel ". I researched
the noun a few years ago in connection with the phrase in 1 Thess 4:4
TO hEAUTOU SKEUOS KTASQAI (http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2002-July/021820.html
). I think that ASQENESTERWi when qualifying SKEUEI must must say
something about the quality of the SKEUOS as a "human instrument."
ASQENHS itself is given the essential sense in BDAG> "of that which
lacks strength: ‘weak, powerless’. BDAG's categorization and
subcategorization of senses in which the adjective is used is pretty
thorough, it seems to me, and, although "vulnerable" certainly does
seem an appropriate synonym, I can't see anything in it that suggests
a vulnerability that has a POSITIVE sense. So if ASQENESTERWi in 1
Peter 3:7 is supposed to suggest vulnerability in a positive sense,
I'd like to see some evidence supporting this view.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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