At 12:38 PM -0600 1/8/97, Jonathan Robie wrote: >This has been a really interesting thread! Time for my two cents... > >Carl Conrad wrote: > >> Personally I've always thought that the delicate irony of 13:1 >> makes pretty clear what Paul means by "the greater gifts" and >> that is why I think the adversative DE in 12:31 is important: >> not everyone can heal, not everyone can speak in tongues or >> interpret them, but everybody can show Christ's love, and that >> is a considerably greater, more valuable gift, the absence of which can >> nullify any value to healing, tongue-speaking, or interpretation. > >Whenever I question Carl's interpretations, I look like a fool afterwards, >but I always learn something useful in the process, so here goes... If you DON'T question them, you may look like a WORSE fool! Aristotle said at some point early in the Ethics, in disagreement with Plato's conception of the Idea of the Good, "Plato is my friend, but the truth is a greater friend." In my last response to James Vellenga yesterday, I said I wavered between the two explanations, particularly because of the nice competitive emphasis in ZHLOUTE, which could indeed refer to the Corinthians' competitive individualism in spiritual matters, but I'm still inclined toward understanding the ZHLOUTE as imperative. >I like the above interpretation, but I'm struggling with the meaning of ETI >KAQ hUPERBOLHN hODON: > >1Cor 12:31 (GNT) ZHLOUTE DE TA CARISMATA TA MEIZONA. KAI ETI KAQ hUPERBOLHN >hODON hUMIN DEIKNUMI. 13:1 EAN TAIS GLWSSAIS TWN ANQRWPWN LALW KAI TWN >AGGELWN... > >Doesn't ETI indicate that love is a *still* more outstanding way than the >greater gifts? If this is the case, then it can't be identical with the >greater gifts. And TA CARISMATA is plural - love would be one gift, and >hence singular. > >Robertson's Word Pictures suggests the translation "I show you a way par >excellance", or "beyond all comparison", saying that this is superlative, >not comparative. He indicates the use of KAQ hUPERBOLHN EIS hUPERBOLHN in 2 >Cor 4:17 to support this. But if this is the case, what is that ETI doing there? There are three questions here: (1) Is KAQ' hUPERBOLHN in fact a comparative or superlative expression? (2) How does ETI function here? and (3) Doesn't the plural MEIZONA (CARISMATA) stand in contradiction to the focus of chapter 13 on AGAPH. (1) I would agree that KAQ' hUPERBOLHN ought to be understood as a superlative rather than a comparative, and I think Robertson's suggestion of par excellence to translate it is, well, excellent. I just checked LSJ for hUPERBOLH and I find it somewhat ironic that far more often than not, particularly in adverbial expressions, the word tends to have a pejorative sense of excess. Here, however, I don't think a pejorative sense of excess is conceivable. I think it has to be superlative. (2) But Jonathan is right: if it's superlative, how can ETI govern it? "Still/yet most excellent"? Seems dubious. What people want to understand it as is a comparative, "still more excellent." But it really doesn't seem to be a comparative. So what about ETI? Actually, the function of ETI as a qualifier of comparatives is secondary; its original and primary usage is as a temporal adverb much like Latin IAM or German NOCH or English "yet." It points to the immediate present or future in relation to the past or the fading present: OUKETI = "no longer, no more"; ETI KAI NUN = "and even now." I think that the sense of KAI ETI in 1 Cor 12:31 may very well be "and now ..." and be understood not with KAQ' hUPERBOLHN but rather with DEIKNUMI (which verb, by the way, is one of those present tenses with future reference!): "And NOW I'll show you ... (ta'da!) ... a course par excellence." (3) I don't have my previous post at hand, but I believe that I said I thought that the MEIZONA (CARISMATA) referred not just to AGAPH but rather to PISTIS, ELPIS, and AGAPH, the three endowments that MENEI (13:13) even after the others fade away with the dawning of the new age--and Paul certainly does emphasize, in 13:8-10, the passing-away of those other endowments of which the Corinthians pneumatics are so proud. These three last into the age-to-come, and of the three, Paul says, MEIZWN hH AGAPH. I reiterate: I think this is a plausible reading, but I think that the alternative reading (ZHLOUTE as indicative) is quite plausible as well. 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/