[B-Greek] The relative pronouns in Ephesians 6:17 and Revelation 5:8‏

John Sanders john.franklin.sanders at gmail.com
Sat Oct 16 08:28:09 EDT 2010


I agree, the issues with syntax were done early on.

JFS

On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 6:23 PM, Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com> wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


-- 
John Sanders
Suzhou, China



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