[B-Greek] 2 Thess 2:15

Donald Vance donaldrvance at mac.com
Thu Dec 30 15:52:18 EST 2010


It seems to me that this is a question of "definiteness," which may be indicated by a definite article. Does not the possessive serve to mark the noun and thus make the article superfluous? If Paul had meant "any ole letter," this would require specific grammatical marking, would it not? 

In Biblical Hebrew, a possessive pronoun makes the noun definite and if one wishes to indicate ownership of an indefinite entity, a prepositional phrase with lamed is required.
מכתבנו "the letter of ours" = "our (specific) letter"
מכתב לנו "any ole letter of ours" 

Sent from my iPhone

Donald R. Vance
Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature 
Oral Roberts University 
donaldrvance at mac.com

On Dec 30, 2010, at 2:06 PM, Ken Penner <kpenner at stfx.ca> wrote:

> I have always taught that the article may be dropped in a prepositional phrase.
> 
> Robertson's Grammar XVI.VIII(c) (page 791) has the following under "The Absence of the Article."
> 
> "(c) PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES.  These were also often considered definite enough without the article. So ἐν οἴκῳ (1 Cor. 11:34. Cf. ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ, ‘in the house,’ Jo. 11:20)=‘at home.’ So we say “go to bed,” etc. Moulton pertinently cites English “down town,” “on ’change,” “in bed,” “from start to finish.” This idiom is not therefore peculiar to Greek. It is hardly necessary to mention all the N. T. examples, so common is the matter." 
> "For διά note διά νυκτός (Ac. 5:19), διὰ μέσου (Lu. 4:30), διὰ μέσον (17:11)." 
> "For classic examples see Gildersleeve, Syntax, p. 259 f. The papyri furnish abundant parallels (Völker, Syntax, pp. 15–17) as do the inscriptions (Radermacher, N. T. Gr., p. 92)."
> 
> The next section continues:
> 
> "(d) WITH BOTH PREPOSITION AND GENITIVE.  It is not surprising to find no article with phrases which use both preposition and genitive like εἰς εὐαγγέλιον θεοῦ (Ro. 1:1), ἀπὸ ὀφθαλμῶν σου (Lu. 19:42), ἐκ δεξιῶν μου (Mt. 20:23), ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς κόσμου (Mt. 24:21), παρὰ καιρὸν ἡλικίας (Heb. 11:11), ἐν καιρῷ πειρασμοῦ (Lu. 8:13), ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου (Mt. 25:34), ἐν βραχίονι αὐτοῦ (Lu. 1:51), etc."
> 
> I hope this helps,
> 
> 
> Ken M. Penner, Ph.D.
> Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic vocabulary memorization software:
> http://purl.org/net/kmpenner/flash/ 
> kpenner at stfx.ca
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Ehrman, Bart D
> Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2010 1:13 PM
> To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [B-Greek] 2 Thess 2:15
> 
>     In his commentary on 2 Thessalonians, W. Marxsen claims that since 2:15 εἴτε δι' ἐπιστολὴς ἡμῶν lacks an article (as in εἴτε δι' τῆς ἐπιστολὴς ἡμῶν) it does not refer back to a specific letter (e.g., to 1 Thessalonians) but is meant in a general sense to refer to any ole letter that he may have written (or not).  If he had wanted to refer to 1 Thessalonians in particular, he would have used the article.  I’m interested in the grammatical question.  What do y’all think?
> 
> 
> 
> n  Bart Ehrman
> 
> 
> 
> Bart D. Ehrman
> 
> James A. Gray Professor
> 
> Department of Religious Studies
> 
> University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.bartdehrman.com
> 
> 
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