[B-Greek] The relative pronouns in Ephesians 6:17 and Revelation 5:8
John Sanders
john.franklin.sanders at gmail.com
Fri Oct 15 21:17:50 EDT 2010
No, if anything, I would take the sword as a stand-in for GLOSSA. We are
still dealing with metaphors. I fear explaining the metaphors will be
beyond the permissable guidelines of this venue.
JFS
Suzhou, China
2010/10/16 Leonard Jayawardena <leonardj at live.com>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> > Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:44:40 +0800
> > Subject: Re: [B-Greek] The relative pronouns in Ephesians 6:17 and
> > Revelation 5:8
> > From: john.franklin.sanders at gmail.com
> > To: leonardj at live.com
> > CC: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> >
> >
> >
> > 2010/10/15 Leonard Jayawardena>
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> >> Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 13:54:35 +0800
> >> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] The relative pronouns in Ephesians 6:17 and
> >> Revelation 5:8
> >> From:
> > john.franklin.sanders at gmail.com
> >> To: leonardj at live.com
> >> CC: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> >
> >
> >> Conderning Ephesians 6:17:
> >>
> >> I consider the simile to be PNEUMATOS construed with hRHMA QEOU, then
> >> the simile and the grammar work together. To consider the simile
> >> something else will require an explanation of why the grammar of the
> >> relative pronoun is wrong.
> >> --
> >> John Sanders
> >> Suzhou, China
> >
> >
> > LJ: A further comment on above.
> >
> >
> > As I have already mentioned before, I understand hO ESTIN in THN
> > MACAIRAN TOU PNEUMATOS, hO/ ESTIN rRHMA QEOU in Ephes. 6:17 to be
> > explanatory hO ESTIN, seen also in the same book in 5:4.
> >
> > If the ordinary relative is used, then the "correct" form is hH,
> > feminine singular, to agree with MACAIRA (feminine noun), which is the
> > headword in the phrase THN MACAIRAN TOU PNEUMATOS. The word of God,
> > here meaning the gospel, is metaphorically called a sword. "The sword
> > of the spirit" is the offensive weapon wielded by the Christian
> > soldier, the spiritual counterpart of the earthly, literal sword of,
> > say, a Roman soldier. (A discussion of how exactly the gospel is a
> > sword would take us beyond B-Greek.)
> >
> > Therefore if Paul did not use explanatory hO ESTIN, then we can only
> > understand the relative pronoun here as being assimilated in gender to
> > the predicate substantive, viz. rHMA (neuter), in the same way that the
> > relatives in Rev. 4:5 and 5:8 are.
> >
> > PNEUMATOS is not even a possible antecedent for the relative because
> > construing the relative with PNEUMATOS would make THN MACAIRAN TOU
> > PNEUMATOS equivalent to "the sword of the word of God." To make any
> > sense of that, you have to take TOU PNEUMATOS adjectivally, in which
> > case the phrase means "the-word-of-God sword." But when the relative
> > clause is addded, we have "the-word-of-God sword, which is the word of
> > God" (!), which is nonsense.
>
> > JFS: I am not sure I am going to buy into that. Once a substitution
> > has been made, then employing it in the original sentence would insure
> > redundancy. By seeing the "spirit" as the word-of-God, I see the sword
> > as the means that "spirit", or word-of-God is spread. I do not require
> > that you see the simile, or metaphore, as I do. But the metaphor I see
> > conforms to the "grammar" of the text. You need to amend the
> > "grammar", so that the text reads differently than what one would
> > expect. I see no advantage in that admendment and its resultant
> > reading, but you do. The burden of pursuasion lies with (because you
> > are admending the expected syntax of the relative pronoun).
>
> > John Sanders
> > Suzhou, China
>
>
> LJ: You are right-I made a mistake in using the relative clause after the
> substitution was made. In fact I realized my error before I read your post
> and was going to correct it.
>
> However, the substitution of hRHMA TOU QEOU for PNEUMATOS, which you see as
> the antecedent of the relative pronoun, still results in the phrase "the
> sword of the word of God" (which, if one is to make any sense at all of it,
> has to be understood as "the-word-of-God sword," "the word of God" being
> understood adjectivally). Your interpretation of this is, "By seeing the
> 'spirit' as the word-of-God, I see the sword as the means that 'spirit,' or
> word-of-God is spread." Am I really seeing what I am reading? Are you
> actually saying that Paul is urging the Ephesians to use a literal sword to
> spread the message of the gospel?
>
>
> Leonard Jayawardena
>
--
John Sanders
Suzhou, China
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list