[B-Greek] Ephesians 2:8

Brian Abasciano bvabasciano at gmail.com
Thu Apr 21 12:39:00 EDT 2011


Wallace gives an excellent treatment of this issue in his grammar, pp. 
334-35. I would advise checking it out. He describes the 4 main options. Two 
are very unlikely, TOUTO as referring to either  PISTEWS or CHARITI. The 
third is the one most respondents have been advocating, reference to the 
preceding clause, essentially the concept of salvation by grace through 
faith. And that is a very viable option. But without explicitly saying so, 
Wallace seems to favor taking KAI TOUTO adverbially, and points out that 
both BDF and BAGD (as the revision BDAG still does) take this view. I think 
this is probably right, though the conceptual referent option is very 
possible and it is hard to choose between the conceptual vs. adverbial 
options. They probably come out to roughly the same place, with the text's 
focus being on salvation not being "of ourselves" but God's gift.

God bless,

Brian Abasciano

***********

Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 23:52:06 -0400
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 23:52:06 -0400
From: Robert Stump <robertstump at gmail.com>
Subject: [B-Greek] Ephesians 2:8
To: B-Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <BANLkTik+Ed-O0t3Sjr8jcA+KLsV6LpNz-A at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-7

Is there any reason to think that TOUTO in Ephesians 2:8 must, of
necessity, refer to PISTEWS as opposed to CARITI? Is there reason to
favor one over the other?

?? ??? ?????? ???? ?????????? ??? ??????? ??? ????? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?? 
?????

TH GAR CARITI ESTE SESWSMENOI DIA PISTEWOS KAI TOUTO OUK EX UMWN QEOU TO 
DWRON

Yours in Christ,
Robert Stump
Orlando, FL
Seminarian

*****

Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 21:07:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: Michael Aubrey <mga318 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Ephesians 2:8
To: Robert Stump <robertstump at gmail.com>, B-Greek
<b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <604390.12162.qm at web55805.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

It refers to neither and it refers to both.

TOUTO is neuter--neither PISTEWS nor CHARITI are neuter. They're both 
feminine.


Neuter demonstratives that do not have a neuter antecedent can refer to an 
entire state of affairs:


(TH GAR CHARITI ESTE SESWSMENOI DIA PISTEWS) KAI TOUTO...

TOUTO refers to the entire event of salvation by grace through faith.


Mike Aubrey
http://evepheso.wordpress.com




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