[B-Greek] PASA GRAGH QEOPNEUSTOS KAI WFELIMOS--2 Timothy 3:16

Donald COBB docobb at orange.fr
Fri Jul 24 06:07:54 EDT 2009


Hello Leonard,

I'll just comment very quickly on the Mark passage. Mark's structure, 
nesting ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (hO hUIOS TOU ANQRWPOU) between ὥστε κύριός 
ἐστιν (hWSTE KURIOS ESTIN) and καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου (KAI TOU SABBATOU) is not 
particularly unusual. The parallel passages in Matt. and Luke show that the 
other Gospel writers took the saying in the same way (I wouldn't put much 
stock in the variant lesson in Luke, which is pretty clearly, IMO, a 
harmonizing tendency). Translating ὥστε κύριός ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ 
τοῦ σαββάτου (hWSTE KURIOS ESTIN hO hUIOS TOU ANQRWPOU KAI TOU SABBATOU) as 
it usually is rendered--"so that the Son of Man is also Lord of the 
Sabbath"--is correct grammatically and on target contextually.

Having said that, I personally don't see how the two genitives in this 
passage could be compared to the two nominative attributes of the subject in 
the Timothy passage. The functions aren't the same.

Blessings,

Donald Cobb
Aix-en-Provence, France


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Leonard Jayawardena" <leonardj at live.com>
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 11:25 AM
Subject: [B-Greek] PASA GRAGH QEOPNEUSTOS KAI WFELIMOS--2 Timothy 3:16


>
>
>
>
> In his "Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties," Gleason L. Archer writes, 
> under the entry "2 Timothy," as follows:
>
> Quote
>
>
> So far as I am aware, no twentieth century English translation has 
> followed RV and ASV in rendering [QEOPNEUSTOS] as an attributive 
> adjective, whether their translators were liberal or conservative in their 
> theological outlook. The reason for this is that no other instance can be 
> found in New Testament Greek where an attributive adjective is connected 
> with a predicate adjective by means of a [KAI] ("and"). The verb "to be" 
> is omitted in this clause; therefore it must be supplied either before or 
> after [QEOPNEUSTOS]. But since [QEOPNEUSTOS] is followed by [KAI] and a 
> second adjective, [WFELIMOS],which everyone agrees is predicate, it 
> necessarily follows that [QEOPNEUSTOS] also is predicate. Hence the only 
> legitimate translation is "All Scripture [ or 'Every Scripture'] (is) 
> God-breathed and profitable..."
>
> Unquote
>
>
> Is is it a valid argument to say that translation "X" is not legitimate 
> because such a structure is not found in New Testament Greek? With my 
> limited knowledge of Greek, it seems more grammatically regular to 
> translate the words hWSTE KYRIOS ESTIN hO YIOS TOU ANQRWPOU KAI TOU 
> SABBATOU in Mark 2:28 as "so that the son of man and of the sabbath is 
> Lord" rather than as "so that the son of man is Lord also (or even) of the 
> sabbath," as they are always rendered in NT translations, but the latter 
> translation is required (a) by comparison with the parallels in Mt. 12:8 
> and Lk. 6:5 (though a variant reading has the same wording as Mark 2:28); 
> and (b) because the former translation makes no sense. But if these Greek 
> words stood alone and you had never come across the phrase "son of man" 
> before, how many of you would translate them as "so that the son of man is 
> Lord even of the sabbath"? Note that the two genitives of Mk. 2:28, which 
> are joined by KAI, are separated, with the first mod
> ifying the subject and the second becoming a part of the predicate. A 
> similar separation happens to QEOPNEUSTOS KAI WFELIMOS when the former is 
> rendered attributively.
>
> Is there a parallel to Mark 2:28 elsewhere in NT Greek or is it unique? If 
> latter, wouldn't that vitiate Archer's argument that QEOPNEUSTOS should 
> not be rendered attributively because "no other instance can be found in 
> New Testament Greek where an attributive adjective is connected with a 
> predicate adjective by means of a [KAI]..."?
>
> I would much appreciate readers' comments on both Archer's objections to 
> an attributive translation of QEOPNEUSTOS and my critique of them. Also,is 
> anyone aware of an even better example to counter Archer's argument than 
> my example from Mk. 2:28?
>
>
> Leonard Jayawardena
> Sri Lanka
>
> P.S. In a private correspondence quite sometime ago, a member of this 
> forum raised a similar objection to my translation of 2 Timothy 3:16, 
> which incidentally is "Every God-breathed writing is also profitable, 
> etc.," and this post will serve also as a response to that (if he still 
> reads this forum).
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