[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)
> 
> 
> 
> 



More information about the B-Greek mailing list