Re: Subject: 2 Cor. 5:19

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Aug 24 1995 - 18:47:16 EDT


At 2:47 PM 8/24/95, David Moore wrote:
>Ron Stephens <clcc@pacifier.com> wrote:
>
>>I've been "lurking" here for while and have found your discussions
>>fascinating.
>>
>>I'm hoping you will help me resolve a dilemma with 2nd Corinthians 5:19.
>>While the question has to do with the English, I'm hoping that your
>>knowledge of Greek will reveal the answer. I've been challenged concerning
>>this verse, as to the intended meaning of the conjunction "in".
>>
>>2Cor. 5:19 KJV "...God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself..."
>>2Cor. 5:19 NIV "...God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ..."
>>
>>Was God IN (i.e. within) Christ, as the KJV punctuation implies, or was God
>>reconciling the world INn (by means of) Christ, as the NIV indicates.
>>
>>I HAVE a position on this issue, but am hard pressed to prove it gramatically.
>>
>>Thank you, in advance, for your comments.
>
>
> It's pretty difficult to be dogmatic on this one, Ron. Both the
>context and the grammar could lend themselves to either of the above
>interpretations.
>
> It may be that Paul is here quoting a hymn or well-known saying.
>The Greek word hOTI sometimes indicates a formal quote. In such a case,
>Paul would be saying, "As the saying goes...." But be this as it may, it
>doesn't offer much in the way of hints on how the saying is to be
>interpreted.
>
> As the KJV has translated it is probably the more natural way of
>understanding the Greek since the verb HN (was) is closest to EN CRISTW
>(in Christ) and so these two would naturally be considered in apposition.
>But Greek is not so strongly guided by word order as is English, so, as
>mentioned above, it is difficult to be dogmatic.

I quite agree with David's statement that it's best not to be dogmatic
here. I would make two rather obvious observations that I have not checked
against either the commentaries or the concordance showing usage of such
phrases as EN XRISTWi. One is that the periphastic imperfect formed with
the participle is by no means uncommon in Koine, although I am not so sure
exactly how common it is in Paul. The combination of HN KATALLASSWN would
very neatly enclose its complements, EN XRISTWi and the object TON KOSMON,
in which case I would think that EN XRISTWi would best be taken as
instrumental, as is very common also in Koine. It does not seem to me that
this is one of those typical EN XRISTWi phrases that Paul uses to speak of
the corporate constituency of believers in union with Christ, although I
may be wrong about that also.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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