[B-Greek] Absent Definite Article strips Personality from The Holy Spirit
Elizabeth Kline
kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Mon Jun 15 17:56:28 EDT 2009
On Jun 15, 2009, at 11:35 AM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:
> A brief review of the presence/absence of the article with QEOS in
> comparison to PNEUMA in the GNT doesn't reveal any substantial
> differences. QEOS as PNEUMA has referential ambiguity in the GNT.
> QEOS is used frequently without the article. Any argument about PNEUMA
> without the article might also be applied to QEOS. G.Cooper[1]
> 1.50.3.4 p.397 states "(hO) QEOS God and (hO) ANQROPOS are conceptions
> both personal and generic. Therefore with them a conflict is set up
> between the usage natural for proper nouns, i.e. omission of the
> article, and that natural for generically conceived individuals, i.e.
> use of the article. As a result the article is used, or omitted,
> usually though not always without any distinction."
>
> The way I read Cooper, any attempt to tie the article with QEOS to
> notions like personal/impersonal fails before it gets started.
>
> Elizabeth Kline
>
> [1] G.Cooper (Greek Syntax, four volumes) devotes 200 pages (v.1 & v.
> 3) to discussion and illustration of the greek article.
On Jun 15, 2009, at 12:54 PM, Vasileios Tsialas wrote:
> The word "God," on the contrary,
> is
> rarely used to denote anyone else but the Father of Jesus Christ,
> the Creator
> of the universe. Syntactically, many times it stands like a proper
> name.
> This
> is not the case with "spirit".
Thank you Vasileios . I am aware that QEOS and PNEUMA are not a
perfect match. While QEOS without the article is referentially less
ambiguous in the GNT than PNEUMA, they both appear to perform in a
similar way relative to the presence/absence of the article. The
original question wasn't about lexical semantics, it was about the
presence and absence of the article with PNEUMA. A passage worth
contemplating is Matt 3:16
Matt. 3:16 βαπτισθεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εὐθὺς
ἀνέβη ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕδατος· καὶ ἰδοὺ
ἠνεῴχθησαν [αὐτῷ] οἱ οὐρανοί, καὶ
εἶδεν [τὸ] πνεῦμα [τοῦ] θεοῦ
καταβαῖνον ὡσεὶ περιστερὰν [καὶ]
ἐρχόμενον ἐπ᾿ αὐτόν·
MATT. 3:16 BAPTISQEIS DE hO IHSOUS EUQUS ANEBH APO TOU hUDATOS· KAI
IDOU HNEWiCQHSAN [AUTWi] hOI OURANOI, KAI EIDEN [TO] PNEUMA [TOU] QEOU
KATABAINON hWSEI PERISTERAN [KAI] ERCOMENON EP᾿ AUTON·
The brackets [TO] PNEUMA [TOU] QEOU indicate the lack of the articles
in Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. The parallel accounts in the other
gospels have the article. Did Sinaiticus and Vaticanus omit the
article? Didn't these scribes know how to read Greek? Didn't they
understand that the lack of the article here completely changes the
meaning of this text? Our presuppositions about everything will for
most part determine how we handle this evidence. B.Ehrman would
probably find an orthodox corruption:-) I don't have his book on hand,
just a wild guess.
Look at John
John 1:32 Καὶ ἐμαρτύρησεν Ἰωάννης λέγων
ὅτι τεθέαμαι τὸ πνεῦμα καταβαῖνον
ὡς περιστερὰν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ καὶ
ἔμεινεν ἐπ᾿ αὐτόν. 33 κἀγὼ οὐκ
ᾔδειν αὐτόν, ἀλλ᾿ ὁ πέμψας με
βαπτίζειν ἐν ὕδατι ἐκεῖνός μοι
εἶπεν· ἐφ᾿ ὃν ἂν ἴδῃς τὸ πνεῦμα
καταβαῖνον καὶ μένον ἐπ᾿ αὐτόν,
οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ βαπτίζων ἐν πνεύματι
ἁγίῳ.
Here we have both an articular TO PNEUMA and what we would expect in a
prepositional phrase, PNEUMATI without an article. The presence and
absence of the article here would not lead us to suggest different a
different referent for TO PNEUMA and PNEUMATI. Following G.Cooper's
extensive treatment of this topic, the presence or absence of the
article with what others have called global VIPs does not tell us if
the referent is personal or generic. PNEUMA hAGION like QEOS has the
status of a global VIP in the GNT. For that reason it can function as
a "proper name" even though that is not best terminology to use. The
referent of TO PNEUMA TO hAGION would appear to be identical with the
referent of PNEUMA hAGION.
Elizabeth Kline
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