[B-Greek] Philippians 2:6 - "ISA" as a "weakened" adverbial form
Murray Hogg
muzhogg at netspace.net.au
Tue Mar 31 16:51:29 EDT 2009
Dear Carl,
Thanks for this comprehensive response.
I did, for what it's worth, mean to write "ISWS" (rather than "ISOS") but clearly suffered a brain-fade in the process of transliteration.
Citing "ISON/A" as the comparative/superlative forms, however, was a real whopper and turned out (as you may of guessed) the primary reason for my difficulties. I recognized the error as soon as you mentioned "ISOTERON/A" - which forms I know, but clearly not as well as I should. With that error corrected all falls into place.
Thanks for your help,
Murray
Carl Conrad wrote:
>
> On Mar 31, 2009, at 1:16 AM, Murray Hogg wrote:
>
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> There is a well rehearsed debate over "TO EINAI ISA QHEWi" (τὸ εἶναι
>> ἴσα θεῷ) (Phil 2:6) which even had some airplay on B-Greek a while
>> back (I searched the archives!) but the discussion wandered off into
>> theological musings and doesn't help me understand the adverbial use
>> of ISA (ISOS) in this context.
>>
>> Moisés Silva states (apparently uncontroversially) that ISA 'can be
>> described grammatically as a "weakened" adverbial form of the
>> adjective' ("Philippians", ECNT Commentary Series, Baker, 2005, p.114).
>>
>> I've been trying to work out why this is so, and reasoned my way to
>> the following;
>>
>> Making a rote application of the grammatical rules I learned in
>> college I arrive at the following forms;
>>
>> ISOS = "like" (adjective)
>>
>> ISWN = "like" (adverb)
>>
>> ISON = "more like" (comparative)
>>
>> ISA = "most like" (superlative)
>>
>> What I note is that "most like" does not necessarily entail "exactly
>> like".
>
> There are a couple serious problems with these morphological and
> semantic hypotheses:
> (1) The adverbial form of the adjective ISOS/H/ON is ISWS; the
> comparative adverb, if there were one, would be ISOTERON (neuter sg.
> accusative) or ISOTERA (neuter pl. accusative). Even in the positive
> degree, it is not uncommon to use the neuter singular (ISON) or neuter
> plural (ISA) in an adverbial sense (:"equally" or "on a par" or "on
> equal terms").
> (2) Ordinarily we wouldn't really talk about "equality" in any strict
> sense as admitting a comparative or superlative degree. Is 3 "more equal
> to 2" than 4? Perhaps if we use it in the sense of "roughly equivalent."
>
> LSJ does show that a comparative and superlative form of ISOS/H/ON has
> been employed within the literary history of ancient Greek:
> =====
> Comp. ἰσαίτερος E.Supp.441, Th.8.89, X.HG7.1.14: Sup. ἰσότατος Timo 68;
> ἰσαίτατος Ph.1.462. Adv. ὡς ἰσαίτατα Pl.Lg.744c, but ὡς ἰσότατα
> SIG531.30 (Dyme). [ῑ in early Ep. (exc. Hes.Op.752), cf. Sol.24.1: ῐ
> first in Thgn.678, Sapph.2.1 (but ἶσος Ead.91 s.v.l.), B. 5.46 (but ἶσον
> 1.62, Fr.2.2), and always in Pi. (exc. in compd. ῑσοδαίμων) and Trag.
> (A.Fr.216 is dub. l.) exc. in compd. ῑσό-θεος (q.v.); dub. in
> ἰς-όνειρος. Both quantities are found in later poetry, sts. in same
> line, ἔχοισαν ἴσον κάτω, ἶσον ἄνωθεν Theoc.8.19; πρέσβυν ἴσον κούροις,
> ἶσον ἁδόντα κόραις APl.4.309.]
> =====
>
> But LSJ also shows that the neuter sg. accusative and neuter pl.
> accusative of the adjective have been used adverbially by Greek writers
> -- as early as Homer -- and note that ISA QEWi in Iliad 5.7:
> =====
> Adv. ἴσως (v. sub voc.): but also,
> neut. sg. and pl. from Hom. downwds. (v. sub init.), ἶσον . . ἀπήχθετο
> κηρὶ μελαίνῃ even as Death, Il.3.454; ἶσον ἐμοὶ βασίυε be king like me,
> 9.616; ἶσον γάρ σε θεῷ τίσουσιν Ἀχαιοί ib. 603; ἶσον ἐμῇ κεφαλῇ 18.82;
> τὸν . . ἶσα θεῷ . . εἰσορόωσιν Od.15.520; ἶσα φίλοισι τέκεσσι Il.5.71,
> cf. 13.176, Od.1.432, 11.304, etc.: later abs., alike, δείλαιε τοῦ νοῦ
> τῆς τε συμφορᾶς ἴσον S.OT1347; τὴν Σάμον καὶ Ἡρακλέας στήλας ἴσον
> ἀπέχειν Hdt.8.132: c. dat., ἴσον ναοῖς θεῶν E.Hel.801; ἴσον ἄπεσμεν τῷ
> πρίν equally as before, Id.Hipp.302 (v.l. τῶν πρίν); ἴσα τοῖς πάνυ
> D.C.Fr.70.6; ἴσα καί . . like as, as if, S.OT 1187(lyr.), E.El.994
> (anap.), Th.3.14; ἴσον ὡς . . E.Ion1363; ὥσπερ . . S.El.532; ὥστε . .
> E.Or.882; ἅτε . . Id.HF667(lyr.); ὅσονπερ . . D.15.1.
> =====
>
>> A strict translation of "TO EINAI ISA QHEWi" would thus be "the state
>> of being most equal to God" with the strength of "most equal" being
>> open to some degree of interpretation according to one's theological
>> lights.
>>
>> There is thus an exegetical decision to be made as to whether one
>> takes ISA in a strong sense (i.e. "very nearly like" or "exactly
>> like") or in a weakened sense (i.e. "more like than anything else").
>>
>> I'd appreciate if folks could comment on the validity (or otherwise)
>> of the above reasoning.
>
> There remain real exegetical problems in Philippians 2:6 but I would
> look for them in the exact intended meanings of MORFH and hARPAGMON
> rather than in the substantive phrase TO EINAI ISA QEWi, which pretty
> clearly means "being on a par with God" or "being on a basis of equality
> with God."
>
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
>
>
>
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