Sharp's Rule

From: Denny A Diehl (dennydiehl@juno.com)
Date: Mon Jun 17 1996 - 11:00:17 EDT


Greetings!

 A while back I related on b-greek an incident where a friend
was attending a seminary where a professor was giving the
pros and cons concerning Markan authorship of the last 12
verses of Mark 16. Someone asked him what his personal
view was, to which he said that he rejected them not only
as coming from Mark, but that he rejected their canonicity,
citing Mk 16:16 and Sharp's Rule. I was reproved mildly
for the mistake of thinking that Sharp's Rule had anything
to do with Mk 16:16.

Allow me to quote from Dana and Mantey, A Manual Grammar
Of The Greek New Testament, from the section "The Special
Uses of the Article," p. 147:

        (1) WITH NOUNS CONNECTED BY KAI. The
        following rule by Granville Sharp of a century back
        still proves to be true: "When the copulative KAI
        connects two nouns of the same case, if the article hO
        or any of its cases precedes the first of the said nouns
        or participles, and is not repeated before the second
        noun or participle, the latter always relates to the same
        person that is expressed or described by the first noun
        or participle; i.e., it denotes a farther description of the
        first-named person."

        TOU KURIOU KAI SWTHROS IHSOU XRISTOU
        Of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ 2 Pt 2:20

        The article here indicates that Jesus is both Lord and Savior.
        So in 2 Pt 1:1 TOU THEOU hHMWN KAI SWTHROS
        IHSOU XRISTOU means that Jesus is our God and Savior.
        After the same manner Tit. 2:13, TOU MEGALOU THEOU
        KAI SWTHROS IHSOU XRISTOU, asserts that Jesus is
        the great God and Savior.

>From Dana and Mantey, they include participles along with nouns in the
application of Sharp's Rule. So, why would that not be applicable to
Mk 16:16 where we read:

        hO PISTEUSAS KAI BAPTISTHEIS SWTHHSETAI

I thank you for your help.

Denny Diehl
DennyDiehl@juno.com



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