[B-Greek] Ephesians 1:4-5
Herb Picoski
pic3lite at telus.net
Wed Sep 2 23:08:10 EDT 2009
Good answer.
After my first Greek study on this chapter, I concluded that the author's
topic was headlined in verse 5 and that is "thn eudokian tou Qelhmatos
autou" (Qeou).then all the rest fell in place for me.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Conrad" <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
To: "Clayton Javurek" <javurek at asu.edu>
Cc: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 7:03 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Ephesians 1:4-5
>
> On Aug 31, 2009, at 4:14 PM, Clayton Javurek wrote:
>
>> Dear B-Greek,
>>
>> Does the grammar and syntax of Ephesians 1:4-5 suggest that the
>> that the "exelexato hemas" and the "prohorisas hemas" and the "eis
>> huiothesian"
>> are all identical in class (A=B=C)? Or are the latter 2 classes B
>> and C
>> identical to each other
>> and are separate from A...(A,B=C)? Is the participle prohorisas
>> modal or
>> supplemental to the
>> main verb exelexato? Are only the prohorisas hemas tied to the eis
>> huiothesian or is the eis huiothesian
>> tied to both the exelexeto hemas and the prohorisas hemas?
>>
>> Thank you kindly for any insights you can offer me on this matter.
>
> To me, at least, the phrasing of the question is not really clear;
> what is meant by asking or saying that these phrases, EXELEXATO hHMAS,
> PRORISAS hHMAS, and EIS hUIOQESIAN, are "identical in class"? Is it a
> question of whether these phrases mean the same thing? Or is it a
> question of how they function syntactically in relation to each other?
> I'm going to assume, rightly or wrongly, that the question is
> concerned with syntactic relationship of these phrases.
>
> We ordinarily cite the Greek text of a passage we want to talk about:
>
> Eph. 1:4 καθὼς ἐξελέξατο ἡμᾶς ἐν αὐτῷ
> πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου εἶναι ἡμᾶς
> ἁγίους καὶ ἀμώμους κατενώπιον
> αὐτοῦ ἐν ἀγάπῃ, 5 προορίσας ἡμᾶς
> εἰς υἱοθεσίαν διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ
> εἰς αὐτόν, κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν τοῦ
> θελήματος αὐτοῦ,
> [EPH. 1:4 KAQWS EXELEXATO hHMAS EN AUTWi PRO KATABOLHS KOSMOU EINAI
> hHMAS hAGIOUS KAI AMWMOUS KATENWPION AUTOU EN AGAPHi, 5 PROORISAS
> hHMAS EIS hUIOQESIAN DIA IHSOU CRISTOU EIS AUTON, KATA THN EUDOKIAN
> TOU QELHMATOS AUTOU,]
>
> What really needs to be noted, although it is not so readily evident
> when one views the text f verses 4-5 in isolation from their context,
> is that these verses are part of a textual sequence that extends
> without any real interruption from verses 3 through 14. The editors of
> NA27/UBS4 mark new sentences beginning with EF' hWi at verses 7, 11,
> and 13, but these are rather arbitrary, in my opinion and that of some
> others.
>
> In terms of its structure, this sequence in the first chapter of
> Ephesians has always seemed to me the single most frustrating passage
> in the GNT. It has always seemed to me to be comparable the phrases
> that I have heard uttered in sequence in a prayer that is comparable
> to a string of pearls od disparate character, some of the pearls being
> more or less like others, some decidedly different, but not forming a
> satisfactorily integrated whole. The problem is partly one of
> articulation: where do we punctuate so as to associate an element like
> EN AGAPHi with the preceding clause or with the participial phrase
> that immediately follows it? I confess that I have endevored on
> several occasions to diagram this whole sequence in order to visualize
> the syntactic relationships within it -- and haven't yet succeeded in
> working out a structure that I find wholly satisfying. I've always had
> the sensation, after working out such a diagram, that I have forced
> some square pegs into round holes or round pegs into square holes, so
> to speak.
>
> All of which is to say that, IF verses 3 and 4 really did constitute
> an integral textual unit that is intelligible in its own right, THEN I
> might assert that the participle PROORISAS functions circumstantially
> to qualify EXELEXATO, clarifying the process the selection indicated
> by the finite verb; and I might assert also that EIS hUIOQESIAN
> indicates the purpose ("so as to adopt us" or result ("so that we were
> adopted") of the action indicated by that participle.
>
> So, for what it's worth, there's one way of analyzing these phrases,
> but it depends upon one way of articulating these two verses within a
> vastly expansive textual sequence that affords, in my opinion,
> insufficient marks of fully intelligible or immediately discernible
> structure -- what Aristotle calls EUSUNOPTON.
>
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
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