[B-Greek] The relative pronouns in Ephesians 6:17 and Revelation 5:8
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sat Oct 16 06:23:25 EDT 2010
On Oct 15, 2010, at 9:17 PM, John Sanders wrote:
> 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
Most of this thread has concerned the metaphors, I think, with minimal
argumentation grounded in Greek grammar.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
> 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
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list