[B-Greek] PASA GRAGH QEOPNEUSTOS KAI WFELIMOS--2 Timothy 3:16
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Sat Jul 25 03:44:08 EDT 2009
ὥστε κύριός ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου
hWSTE KURIOS ESTIN hO hUIOS TOU ANQRWPOU KAI TOU SABBATOU
I will need to rephrase my previous post since I just noted that your arguement has nothing to do with the noun κύριός KURIOS. I still think you cannot use this passage for the purpose you like since the relationship of two genitives to other elements of the sentence are not equivalent to the relationship of two adjectives to the noun(s). ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου hO hUIOS TOU ANQRWPOU is a rather standard collocation which may either intend simply "man" or be used as a title "The son of man" and serves as the subject of the sentence. On the other hand, τοῦ σαββάτου TOU SABBATOU is simply a genitive which can be used with many nouns such as in Acts 1.12
Τότε ὑπέστρεψαν εἰς Ἰερουσαλὴμ ἀπὸ ὄρους τοῦ καλουμένου Ἐλαιῶνος, ὅ ἐστιν ἐγγὺς Ἰερουσαλὴμ σαββάτου ἔχον ὁδόν
TOTE hUESTREYAN EIS IEROUSALHM APO OROUS TOU KALOUMENOU ELAIWNOS, hO ESTIN EGGUS IEROUSALHM SABBATOU EXON hODON.
The famous (or infamous) "Sabbath day's journey."
I really don't think you can make a valid argument regarding the relationship of the two adjectives of 2 Tim 3.16 on the basis of two genitives.
george
gfsomsel
… search for truth, hear truth,
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
defend the truth till death.
- Jan Hus
_________
----- Original Message ----
From: Leonard Jayawardena <leonardj at live.com>
To: docobb at orange.fr
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 11:40:04 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] PASA GRAGH QEOPNEUSTOS KAI WFELIMOS--2 Timothy 3:16
----------------------------------------
> From: docobb at orange.fr
> To: leonardj at live.com; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] PASA GRAGH QEOPNEUSTOS KAI WFELIMOS--2 Timothy 3:16
> Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:07:54 +0200
>
> 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.
LJ: Thanks for the comments, Donald. Could you please justify your statement that the structure in Mark 2:28 -- with the way it was meant to be understood --is not unusual with at least one example from NT Greek?
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.
LJ: I did not say that that translation is not correct grammatically--if that was the case, then why would I have cited Mark 2:28 as providing some justification for translating QEOPNEUSTOS in 2 Timothy 3:16 attributively? What I meant by "grammatically regular" is that it would be more normal to translate hWSTE KURIOS ESTIN hO hUIOS TOU ANQRWPOU KAI TOU SABBATOU as "The son of man and of the sabbath is Lord" since, as I see it, no one would think of separating the two genitives--the first to modify the subject and the second to form part of the predicate--unless there were compelling reasons to do so. In the case of Mark 2:28, the parallels in Matthew and Luke together with the context of this verse and our knowledge of the expression "the son of man" decide for us what the translation of Mark 2:28 should be. I repeat my question: If the words hWSTE KURIOS ESTIN hO hUIOS TOU ANQRWPOU KAI TOU SABBATOU stood alone without any context and you had never
come across the expression "the son of man" in your life, what would be your first instinct--to translate them as "so that the son of man is Lord also (or even) of the sabbath" or "so that the son of man and of the sabbath is Lord"? I invite other members of this forum also to kindly respond to this question since it is an easy question to answer.
> 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.
LJ: Obviously the functions of the two genitives in Mark 2:28 and the two adjectives QEOPNEUSTOS and WFELIMOS in 2 Timothy 3:16 are not the same as genitives and adjectives do not perform identical functions. My argument is this. In Mark 2;28 we have a noun (YIOS) followed by two genitives (TOU ANQRWPOU and TOU SABBATOU). Normally, when a noun is followed by two or more genitives we would translate the genitives to modify the noun unless there was a comparative adjective in the clause requiring one of the genitives to be treated as a genitive of comparison--Am I right so far?--so that, for example, EIS TO ONOMA TOU PATROS KAI TOU YIOU KAI TOU hAGIOU PNEUMATOS (Mt. 28:20) is translated "in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit." Nobody would think of separating any one of the genitives from the noun ONOMA unless there were compelling reasons (contextual or otherwise) to do so. In the case of Mark 2:28, nobody says, "Because the
first genitive modifies YIOS, the second genitive, which is joined to the first by KAI, must modify it too and must not be separated to modify the complement of YIOS." If so, then what justification is there for anyone to say, as Archer does, "Because WFELIMOS, as everyone agrees, is predicate, QEOPNEUSTOS, to which it is joined by KAI, too must be predicate and must not be separated from WFELIMOS to modify the subject" if exegetical considerations point to an attributive QEOPNEUSTOS? My second point is, Are there parallels to Mark 2:28 in NT Greek? If none, wouldn't that be another way in which Mark 2:28 provides support for an attributive construction of QEOPNEUSTOS?
I am writing an article on biblical inspiration, in which, inter alia, I advocate the translation "Every God-breathed writing is also profitable, etc." for 2 Timothy 3:16 and discuss all linguistic arguments known to me against it. I wish to include in the article a rebuttal to Gleason Archer's objection to an attributive QEOPNEUSTOS, but I am not sure whether I can do so unless I receive sufficient feedback to what I have written above from this forum, since I am not a Greek scholar myself. So I would greatly appreciate comments from others too.
Leonard Jayawardena
Sri Lanka
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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