2Cor 6:11-13

From: Paul Toseland (paul@toseland.f9.co.uk)
Date: Fri May 12 2000 - 09:14:26 EDT


On 29 March 2000 at 13:30 I posted a query regarding 2 Cor 6:11-13. I
am interested in the hUMWN variant in 2 Cor 6:11,
and suggested that, if I may be allowed the hypothesis that this is the
original reading, then the noun phrase in 6:13, THN DE
AUTHN ANTISMISQIAN, rather than beginning anew sentence, should be read

in apposition to the main clause
STENOCWREISQE EN TOIS SPLAGCNOIS hUMWN. The text would then read like
this:

TO STOMA hHMWN ANEWiGEN PROS hUMAS, KORINQIOI.
 hH KARDIA hUMWN PEPLATUNTAI.
OU STENOCWREISQE EN hHMIN; STENOCWREISQE DE EN TOIS SPLAGCNOIS hUMWN,
THN DE AUTHN ANTIMISQIAN - hWS TEKNOIS LEGW.
PLATUNQHTE KAI hUMEIS.

A possible translation would then be:

I have opened my mouth to you, Corinthians! Your heart has become
puffed up.
You are not being crushed by us; you are being crushed by your inward
parts, the corresponding penalty -
I am speaking as though to children. Be indeed enlarged!

This translation is intended to bring out an echo of Isa 53:7 LXX in
6:11a, and of Deut 11:16 in 6:11b.

I realize that in raising this I am asking you all to accept, for the
purposes of discussion, a reading that may seem strange, perhaps even
incredible. Unfortunately, to outline my exegetical support here is
simply not practical. Perhaps it will help
if I say that my doctoral dissertation, in which I first proposed this,
has passed examination without a challenge on this point,
and that a number of eminent NT scholars have also read my dissertation,

and discussed it with me, without raising
exegetical objections. I have worked on this passage a good deal, and
am sure that this reading has considerable advantages; in particular,
it neatly resolves the problem of the connection of thought between 2
Cor 6:14-7:1 and the
surrounding material. Given the traditional reading, the line of
thought is so difficult here that many scholars have claimed
that 6:14-7:1 is not part of the original text. The connection between
6:1-10 and 6:11-13 is also difficult, but becomes quite
clear if the hUMWN reading is accepted. If anyone is interested in my
exegetical support for these grand claims, a rather
rough, unfinished argument can be found in Chapter 7 of my "The
Corinthian Crisis",

http://www.toseland.f9.co.uk/paul/ccindex.htm

(But be warned, this chapter is quite dependent on Chapters 1-6, and
does not really conclude until Chapter 8!).

Despite these advantages, however, I have long been troubled by the
syntactical role of DE in the noun appositional noun
phrase THN DE AUTHN ANTIMISQIAN. I have received some helpful responses

from list members, both on and off list,
and have responded to some of them on-list, 4 April 2000, 11:45. But
this problem remained unresolved. However, I have
now sought the opinion of Professor Jerker Blomqvist of Lund, who has a
long standing interest in the syntax of particles,
and I would like, with his kind permission, to share his response here.

>Any new suggestions regarding this vexed passage are welcome. But of
course
>they must be carefully tested to see if they are compatible with what
we
>know (or think we know) about Greek language (among other things). In
this
>case you suggest that a noun phrase THN AUTHN ANTIMISQIAN introduced by

DE
>should be epexegetic, i.e. in syntctical terms function as an
apposition,
>to a preceding main clause. Frankly, I do not think that is possible. I

>cannot remember to have seen DE in a phrase with that function. The
nearest
>parallel I can think of are examples of LEGW DE "by this I mean ..."
>introducing parenthetical explanations (frequent in Aristotle), but
such
>explanations differ from the type you suppose to exist in 2 Cor. in two

>respects: (1) they contain a main verb, i.e. are syntactically complete

>clauses by themselves, and (2) they explain a single word or noun
phrase in
>the preceding clause, not the clause in its entirety. So I do not think

>they are comparable to THN AUTHN ANTIMISQIAN.

>Now, when I say "I have not seen that", this does not mean that such a
>thing could not exist in Greek. Greek is a language full of surprises.
But
>in order to make me (and others) accept that THN DE AUTHN ANTIMISQIAN
could
>function as an apposition to a full clause, you must find examples in
other
>Greek texts of this phenomenon, and I doubt that such examples exist.
>Alternately, you will have to presume that Paul here uses a mode of
>expression that no other Greek text known to us ever uses. That is
>possible, but you can never prove that you are right.

>If you ask me "How do you explain the syntax here?", my answer will be
"I
>don't". Traditionally THN AUTHN ANTIMISQIAN is explained as some sort
of
>internal accusative construed with PLATUNQHTE, with THN AUTHN
ANTIMISQIAN
>understood as equal to TO AUTO hWS ANTIMISQIAN. This is certainly not
>normal Greek either, and I have no better explanation. So the syntax is

a
>puzzle to me and, as you are well aware of, this is not the only
problem in
>this passage. Thus, new suggestions are welcome.

If this is right, then I am driven to the conclusion that it is not
6:14-7:1 which is secondary, but DE in 6:13! It is certainly
simpler to postulate that in the early transmission of the text a
particle was added, rather than that a whole passage; and I
think it is far easier to explain. The hHMWN variant would have arisen
naturally enough through assimilation to the
hHMWN of 6:11a, and the passage would no longer make sense. A later
copyist, reading the text pretty much as we do
today, then introduced DE into 6:13 to indicate that THN AUTHN
ANTIMISQIAN begins of a new sentence, and to smooth

out the asyndeton.

If DE is omitted from 6:13, then a parallel to the construction I am
suggesting is Rom 12:1, PARAKALW OUN hUMAS ...
PARASTHSAI TA SWMATA hUMWN ... THN LOGIKHN LATREIAN hUMWN.

How do others understand the syntax of 6:13? And has anyone ever come
across DE in an appositional noun phrase?

I also have a question about word order. Suppose that Paul had written
OU STENOCWREISQE EN hHMIN; THN DE
AUTHN ANTIMISQIAN, STENOCWREISQE DE EN TOIS SPLAGCNOIS hUMWN. would
this be a 'normal'
construction, at least for him? In Rom 8:3 Paul writes TO GAR ADUNATON
TOU NOMOU ... TON hEAUTOU hUION
PEMYAS ... KATEKRINEN THN hAMARTIAN EN THi SARKI. Here we seem to have
an appositional noun phrase
which begins a sentence introduced by GAR. In 2 Cor 6:13, as it is
usually understood, we seem to have the same sort of
thing: THN DE AUTHN ANTIMISQIAN ... PLATUNQHTE KAI hUMEIS; a sentence
beginning with a noun phrase in
apposition with a main clause and introduced by DE. Of course,
Blomqvist does not consider this construction formal
Greek either. But is there a better explanation? Or would this
construction be more 'normal' than my suggestion? And if
not, why does the order of the clauses make such a difference?

In many ways I would feel more comfortable arguing that DE in 6:13 is
not original; frankly, it doesn't feel right. But the
only ground for arguing that it is secondary would be that it could not
belong in the original construction.


Regards

Paul Toseland




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