Re: Romans 5:6 ETI...ETI KATA KAIRON

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Tue Apr 15 1997 - 08:08:00 EDT


At 5:26 AM -0500 4/15/97, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>I'm having problems understanding this sentence, and I think my point of
>confusion is the ETI...ETI KATA KAIRON formulation:
>
>Roma 5:6 (GNT) ETI GAR CRISTOS ONTWN hHMWN ASQENWN ETI KATA KAIRON hUPER
>ASEBWN APEQANEN.
>
>Some manuscripts, incidentally, say EI GAR, which I can read and understand
>- in this case ONTWN hHMWN ASQENWN ETI becomes one phrase. But I simply
>don't know how to read the ETI...ETI in the version I quoted above.

I would understand the first ETI as to be understood with the genitive
absolute ONTWN hHMWN ASQENWN, and I would understand the ETI KATA KAIRON
phrase as in apposition to it. While it seems a bit strange for the ETI to
be removed from the adverbial phrase with which it is to be understood and
separated from that phrase by the subject CRISTOS, the rhetorical emphasis
upon the ETI is powerful, underscored all the more by the succeeding GAR.
What makes the construction awkward is that CRISTOS is also competing for
that rhetorical highlighting at the beginning of the sentence. My weak
attempt to convey the rhetorical force:

"For it was even then that Christ--while we were helpless, even at the
opportune moment--he died for us impious (creatures)."

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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