[B-Greek] 1Co 13:7 PANTA believe all?
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri May 13 07:19:12 EDT 2011
On May 13, 2011, at 6:14 AM, Barry H. wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Oun Kwon" <kwonbbl at gmail.com>
> To: "Barry H." <nebarry at verizon.net>
> Cc: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 12:27 AM
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] 1Co 13:7 PANTA believe all?
>
>
>> On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 12:16 AM, Barry H. <nebarry at verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> The PANTA's are direct objects of their respective verbs. The grammar is
>>> simple, but what it means, "believes all things," that's a matter of
>>> interpretation!
>>>
>>> N.E. Barry Hofstetter, semper melius Latine sonat...
>>
>> You bring me back to where I was. What does it mean to believe 'all
>> things'? I can't get it . Keep faith in God in all things?
>
> Right. This gets into hermeneutics and theology, which I believe to be
> beyond the scope of what we are supposed to be talking about in B-Greek. I
> could talk about the position of 1 Cor 13 in Paul's narrative argument, the
> structure of the passage, the general eschatological nature of "love" in
> relationship to Christ and his work as Paul conceives it in the Corinthian
> correspondence -- but that isn't about the Greek as much.
No, I don't think it involves hermeneutics or theology. But I think it does
involve Greek usage and I'm inclined to think this is one of those phrases
that is indicative of whether one is thinking in terms of Greek or English
idiom. The subject is AGAPH, the language is figurative. It's not about
loving God or God loving people, but about how one who really AGAPHN
ECEI behaves toward other persons. The standard English versions do
in fact render it "believes all things" -- but that's not really standard English;
rather, we say, "believes everything" or "is altogether trusting." You
might want to call this an accusative of respect with a neuter plural
adjective as the equivalent of an adverbial expression, or call it an
adverbial accusative. These terms, like so many of our grammatical
terms, have been coined more as aids to translators than as significant
indications of the way the Greek works. I don't think that the mind
thinking in Greek gives a second thought to the difference between
a "direct object" and an "adverbial accusative."
And Barry, when I read your signature motto, it reminds me of
euphemisms generally, but especially of those old bowdlerizing
versions -- yea, verily, even Loeb editions -- that offer a French
rather than English version of the obscene expressions or poems --
even when there's a common English expression that everybody
knows!
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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