[b-greek] Re: Romans 4:1 and Wright

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed Dec 05 2001 - 15:20:41 EST


At 11:55 AM -0600 12/5/01, Billy LeJeune wrote:
>Dear group,
>
>N. T. Wright reads Romans 4:1 this way:
>
>What shall we say then? Have we found Abraham to be our father according
>to the flesh?
>
>This reading fits nicely into Wright's interpretation of Romans as a
>whole. My question is does the greek allow for this translation? Are
>there any bibles that put it this way?

We've discussed this in the past, I think. The passage is usually not
punctuated at all except with the question-mark at the end of SARKA. This
involves punctuating TI OUN EROUMEN? hEURHKENAI ABRAAM TON PROPATORA hHMWN
KATA SARKA? It seems to me to involve a problematic ellipse, so that the
second clause gets understood as EROUMEN hEURHKENAI ABRAAM TON PROPATORA
hHMWN KATA SARKA? This involves understanding the subject of EROUMEN as the
subject also of hEURHKENAI. That really seems harsh to me, and I'm still
inclined to favor the traditional view.

You might want to look at a pretty good discussion of this in our recent
archives (October 23-26 with subject-header "A better translation of Rom
4:1?"
--

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad@ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

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