RE: The degree of indefiniteness of hOSOI (Gal 3:10) (Warren, Carl)

From: Moon-Ryul Jung (moon@saint.soongsil.ac.kr)
Date: Tue Feb 08 2000 - 21:45:55 EST


Warren,
thanks for your information and knowledge and wisdom.
Great! It is getting fun. I am willing to accept everything
you said. But still my question is not yet resolved. The original
motivation
of my question was whether it would be linguistically possible to take
  Gal 3:10a hOSOI GAR EX ERGWN NOMOU EISIN hUPO KATARAN EISIN
to mean that those who are (currently and historically) under the
 Law are (currently) under curse. In that case, I may take
the verse to mean that the Jews, who are under the Law as the people of the
Law,
are under curse. In that case,
hHMAS in Gal 3:13 CRISTOS hHMAS EXHIn GORASEN EK THS KATARAS TOU NOMOU,
may be taken to the same group as hOSOI EX ERGWN NOMOU EISIN.

Let me raise two questions.

Q1. The first one is whether 3:10a is a statement of (historical) fact
 or a statement of rule or law. As it is, it seems that 3:10a can taken
both ways. If hOSOI EX ERGWN NOMOU were expressed
by using AN and the subjunctive form of EISIN, it would be hard to take
it as a statement of fact. The fact that we have hOSOI + indicative
makes it possible for me to take it as a statement of fact. Gal 3:10a,
 having the particle GAR, explains Gal 3:9:

  hOI EK PISTEWS EULOGOUNTAI SUN TWi PISTWi Abraham (3:9).
  Those of faith are blessed with the believing Abraham.
  hOSOI GAR EX ERGWN NOMOU EISIN hUPO KATARAN EISIN (3:10a)
  For those who are of the works of the Law under curse.

We may take both 3:9 and 3:10a as general principles or rules.
But in this specific context of Galatians, I think Paul has in
mind currently existing groups when he utters hOI EK PISTEWS
and hOSOI EX ERGWN NOMOU EISIN. The GAR clause in 3:10 explains
3:9 by stating what happens to those who are outside of hOI
EK PISTEWS: One group is blessed and the the other is under curse.

The PAS hO + indicative in Gal 3:10b is obviously taken to be
a statement of rule or law. It is signaled by the fact it refers to
each individual who belongs to the category.
But in Gal 3:10a, the whole group is referred to.
 
Now the question is: is this interpretation violating some linguistic
facts and practices?
   

Q2: Warren said there are several ways to define a group of persons or
things:
    
[PAS] hOS AN subjunctive, [X] means that X is optional.
[PAS] hOS indicative
hOS participle
hOSOI AN subjunctive
hOSOI AN indicative

Can I add "article + prepositional phrase" to this list?

An example of it is TOUS hUPO NOMON in Gal 4:5 TOUS hUPO NONON EXAGORASHi.
Can TOUS hUPO NOMON be taken to refer to anyone who is under the Law?
Or should it refer to a concrete historical entity?
Can the expression be taken both ways?

In the context of Galatians, I take it to refer to a historical entity,
the Jews. As a result, I take hOSOI EX ERGWN EISIN in 3:10 and hHMAS in
3:13
TOUS hUPO NOMON in 4:5 to refer to the same group, the Jews.
But my question is whether this reading is linguistically justified.

Sincerely

Moon
Moon R. Jung
Associate Professor
Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea

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