[B-Greek] Back to Eph. 2:8
Blue Meeksbay
bluemeeksbay at yahoo.com
Sat May 14 13:22:50 EDT 2011
THi GAR CARITI ESTE SESWiSMENOI DIA PISTEWS KAI TOUTO OUK EX hUMWN QEOU TO
DWRON Eph. 2:8
I was reading this morning a book by Fr. Theodore Bobosh about salvation and in
referencing Eph. 2:8 he said we are saved* through* grace *by* faith. I stopped
and said to myself, *That is interesting. He switched *through* and *by.*
Through, gives a nuance of medium, while by, gives a nuance of basis. This
leads me to my question. How should we understand the dative CARITI in
relationship with the preposition DIA in Eph. 2:8? Of course, DIA with the
accusative carries the nuance of basis while DIA with the genitive carries the
nuance of medium (at least in my mind) and in this verse we have the genitive.
Does that help us decide if CARITI should be understood as a dative of means
rather than a dative of cause? Is there anything in the structure that could
help us decide?
I suppose if we understood it as the dative of means, then grace would become
the medium of God, and faith would become the medium of man in salvation. Does
the fact that CARITI is articular give us any indication which sense of the
dative the writer is trying to communicate? It seems if it was anarthrous one
would understand it to be more a dative of cause, whereas with the articular it
would be more likely to be understood as the dative of means.
On the other hand, the use of ENDEIXHTAI in verse 7 seems to indicate it should
be understood as a dative of cause.
Is there anything in the construction and/or context that should direct the mind
to one or the other?
Blue Harris
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