[b-greek] Re: Jerusalem Project (hUPOSTASIS)

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Sep 07 2000 - 09:02:04 EDT


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 --></style><title>Re: [b-greek] Jerusalem Project
(hUPOSTASIS)</title></head><body>
<div>I take this opportunity to reiterate the wish that posters to
B-Greek would use plain text rather than &quot;styled text&quot;--at
least for messages to B-Greek--this includes several characters that
don't show up on my screen as discernible ASCII.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>At 7:06 PM +0000 9/6/00, Mark Wilson wrote:</div>
<div>&gt;2 Cor. 9:4<br>
&gt;<br>
&gt;MH PWS EAN ELQWSIN SUN EMOI MAKEDONES KAI hEURWSIN hUMAS
APARASKEUASTOUS<br>
&gt;KATAISCUNQWMEN hHMEIS hINA MH LEGW hUMEIS EN THi hUPOSTASEI
TAUTHi<br>
&gt;<br>
&gt;Translated by the NET Bible as:<br>
&gt;<br>
&gt;&quot;For if any of the Macedonians should come with me and find
that you are not<br>
&gt;ready to give, we would be humiliated (not to mention you) by
this<br>
&gt;confidence [we had in you].&quot;<br>
&gt;<br>
&gt;In preparation for my question, here is a direct quote from Dr.
David E.<br>
&gt;Garland (Baylor University) on this passage:<br>
&gt;<br>
&gt;&quot;The NIV, along with most English translations, renders the
last word in the<br>
&gt;verse (hUPOSTASIS) as &quot;confidence&quot; or &quot;assurance.&quot;
But no other examples of<br>
&gt;the usage of the word with this meaning exist. (See BAGD, 847) The
word<br>
&gt;means &quot;project&quot; or &quot;plan.&quot; The end of this
verse is therefore better<br>
&gt;translated, &quot;we would be put to shame – not to say anything
about you – in<br>
&gt;this project (undertaking).&quot;&quot;<br>
&gt;<br>
&gt;He goes on to indicate that the Corinthians’ potential
abandonment of the<br>
&gt;Jerusalem Project (the collection of funds for the poor in
Jerusalem), to<br>
&gt;which they had previously committed, would seriously jeopardize
the project<br>
&gt;(hUPOSTASIS) as a whole.<br>
&gt;<br>
&gt;<br>
&gt;Also, who can forget Dr. Wuest’s famous &quot;Title Deed&quot;
to answered prayer,<br>
&gt;where he translated Hebrews 11:1, &quot;Faith is the title deed
(not substance)<br>
&gt;of things hoped for...&quot; And of course Dr. Wuest provided
documents to<br>
&gt;substantiate his claim, showing that it clearly meant, in a legal
sense,<br>
&gt;&quot;title deed.&quot;<br>
&gt;<br>
&gt;With this slightly lengthy introduction, my question concerns
hUPOSTASIS.<br>
&gt;<br>
&gt;Can someone help me understand Dr. Garland’s claim? The NET
Bible translates<br>
&gt;it &quot;confidence.&quot; Yet Dr. Garland indicates that there is
no attestation for<br>
&gt;such a usage.<br>
&gt;<br>
&gt;<br>
&gt;I assume, based on Dr. Wuest’s substantiated claim, that
hUPOSTASIS must<br>
&gt;contain its &quot;technical&quot; sense in Heb. 11. Or, can we
translate Heb. 11:1,<br>
&gt;&quot;Faith is the undertaking&quot; of things hoped for? If so,
what does<br>
&gt;&quot;undertaking&quot; mean in this passage? Even though Dr.
Garland indicates that</div>
<div>&gt;&quot;confidence&quot; is not an option, it seems to fit in
Hebrew 11.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Here's
L&amp;N:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<span
></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font color="#007700">31.84 hUPOSTASIS, EWS f: that which
provides the basis for trust and reliance - 'trust, confidence,
assurance.' KATAISCUNQWMEN hHMEIS, hINA MH LEGW hUMEIS, EN THi
hUPOSTASEI TAUTHi, 'how ashamed we would be - not to speak of your
shame - for we had such confidence in you' 2Cor 9:4; EANPER THN
ARCHN THS hUPOSTASEWS MECRI TELOUS BEBAIAN KATASCWMEN 'if we hold on
firmly to the end to the trust we had at the beginning' He
3:14.</font></div>
<div><font color="#007700"><br></font></div>
<div><font color="#007700">58.1 hUPOSTASIS, EWS f: the essential or
basic nature of an entity - 'substance, nature, essence, real
being.'&nbsp; hOS WN ... CARAKTHR THS hUPOSTASEWS AUTOU v 'who is
Š the exact representation of his real being' or 'Š nature'
He 1:3. In some languages there is no ready lexical equivalent of
'real being' or 'nature.' Therefore, one may express this
concept in He 1:3 as 'who is Š just like what he really
is.'</font></div>
<div><font size="+1" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font color="#007700">In this instance I think the etymology is
helpful, at least to some extent: hUPOSTASIS means &quot;standing
below&quot; or &quot;underlying substance&quot; and in the later sense
was used in an almost technical sense by Aristotle (it's included in
his definitions in the Metaphysics). I'm inclined to think that one
ought to proceed from &quot;basis&quot; or &quot;foundation&quot; and
consider appropriate words derivative from that notion to convey its
sense in particular contexts</font></div>
<div><font color="#007700"><br></font></div>
<div><font color="#007700">As for &quot;project&quot; or
&quot;plan&quot;, I can see that in terms of &quot;underlying notion&quot;
involved in an enterprise, but &quot;project&quot; or &quot;plan&quot;
can range pretty widely&nbsp;</font></div>
<div><font color="#007700">and I'd be rather leery of those words,
depending on the context.</font></div>
<div><font color="#007700"><br></font></div>
<div><font color="#007700">I find L&amp;N's take on EN THi hUPOSTASEI
TAUTHi in 2 Cor 9:4 rather interesting; the problem in 2 Cor 9:4 is
that the syntactic linkage of the phrase is somewhat vague, even
elliptical: does it really depend upon KATAISCUNQWMEN? Pretty clearly
it is adverbial: &quot;on this basis&quot; -- &quot;with THIS
understanding&quot;--and quite frankly, the phrasing of 2 Cor 9:4
strikes me as extremely colloquial, like some of
Galatians.</font></div>
<div><font size="+1" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div>&gt;How would one translate hUPOSTASIS in Hebrews 11?<br>
</div>
<div>The last time I tried to do it on B-Greek (May 9,&nbsp; 1999), I
thought &quot;assurance&quot; was quite adequate:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>------------------------</div>
<div>&quot; Finally, let me suggest my own endeavor to preserve the
grammar and the 'chiastic' word order of Heb 11:1. This is all the
more 'chiaastic' because I present the translation of PRAGMATWN a
second time, so that the structure of</div>
<div>ELPIZOMENWN ... BLEPOMENWN becomes A-B-C-C'-B'-A':<br>
<br>
&quot;This is faith: when we hope, it is our assurance of the events
we hope for<br>
and of those events it is our touchstone although we do not see
them.&quot;<br>
<br>
Without the repetition of the translation of PRAGMATWN, it
becomes:<br>
<br>
&quot;Here is faith: when we hope, our assurance of the events we hope
for and<br>
our touchstone, although we do not see them.&quot;<br>
<br>
Admittedly this is a paraphrase rather than a literal translation,
because<br>
one must insert the links that the target language requires if one is
to</div>
<div>keep items in the order in which they appear in the original
language.</div>
<div>--------------------------</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>&gt;Do you concur with Dr. Garland of his translation
&quot;project (undertaking)&quot; in</div>
<div>&gt;2 Cor. 9:4?</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>No, for reasons cited above.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>&gt;BTW (You may notice a slight change in my email address. I
change every so<br>
&gt;often in an attempt to out run all the Junk Mailers in cyber
space. I was</div>
<div>&gt;getting way too many junk emails.)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>It's a losing battle, isn't it? Might as well pray to be rid of
telephone solicitors at dinner hour in the evening.</div>
<div><br></div>

<div>-- <br>
&nbsp;<br>
Carl W. Conrad<br>
Department of Classics/Washington University<br>
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018<br>
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649<br>
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu </div>
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