[B-Greek] TO DE SWMA TOU CRISTOU--can the traditional translation be sustained?

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Sat Feb 27 14:52:53 EST 2010


On Feb 27, 2010, at 7:05 AM, David Stuart wrote:

> To help clarify some things, here is a copy of the article that I found through Google scholar, hosted on a pro-sabbatarian site. It is poor quality, and I can only hope they have permission to use it, but I understand that the original JBL article was first printed in a sabbatarian church's ministerial journal, so they may have permission. 
> 
> http://www.friendsofsabbath.org/Further_Research/Holy%20Days/Col%202_17_Journal%20of%20Biblical%20Literature.pdf
> 
> His actual translation seems rather strained, so I didn't post so much in order to look at that, but just to see what folks thought of the use of the genitive, and to see whether it is indeed a problem for DE to connect the two disparate clauses. 


The text:

Col. 2:16 Μὴ οὖν τις ὑμᾶς κρινέτω ἐν βρώσει καὶ ἐν πόσει ἢ ἐν μέρει ἑορτῆς ἢ νεομηνίας ἢ σαββάτων·  17 ἅ ἐστιν σκιὰ τῶν μελλόντων, τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ. 

Col. 2:16 MH OUN TIS hUMAS KRINETW EN BRWSEI KAI EN POSEI H EN MEREI hEORTHS H NEOMHNIAS H SABBATWN·  17 hA ESTIN SKIA TWN MELLONTWN, TO DE SWMA TOU CRISTOU. 

What T.Martin considers a major weakness in the traditional exegesis of of Col. 2:17 is actually a major strength. In the traditional exegesis meaning (semantic structure) takes precedence over form (surface structure). The enconding of meaning normally involves some level of skewing. The larger context (textual) and the cognitive framework help to insure that less than perfect encoding of the text accomplishes the goals of the author. This observation is embedded in the traditional exegesis which looks to  Philo's contrast between SKIA and SOMA [J.D.G. Dunn, Col. NIGTC].

Elizabeth Kline
 






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