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The spirit of "νυν" ?

Posted: November 14th, 2024, 7:49 am
by Bbennetch
τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ νῦν ἐνεργοῦντος ἐν τοῖς υἱοῖς τῆς ἀπειθείας

Michael W. Holmes, The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition (Lexham Press; Society of Biblical Literature, 2011–2013), Eph 2:2. (Just giving credit to the source text here)

I am not working on my homework, though I am at home and working on this. I am 63 and studying Ephesians. I see that consensus is clearly to translate this sentence as "The spirit which is now at work in the sons of disobedience." In looking at this sentence in the context I am thinking that there might be some reason to read it as "the spirit of ‘now’ which is at work in the sons of disobedience,” where “the spirit of now” is a kind of zeitgeist. According to BDG the νυν with article can have the meaning of this present time/age. Is this a possibility or do other points of grammar not allow for this reading?

Re: The spirit of "νυν" ?

Posted: November 15th, 2024, 12:07 pm
by Jonathan Robie
This is a good question - and I think context is the best way to answer it.

τὸ πνεῦμα can have a range of meanings in Greek, but it has to be interpreted in context, and these two phrases seem to be parallel:
  • κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου
  • κατὰ τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος, τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ νῦν ἐνεργοῦντος ἐν τοῖς υἱοῖς τῆς ἀπειθείας·
I think that context tells us that τοῦ πνεύματος is the same as ὁ ἄρχων τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος - the prince of the power of the air is the spirit he is talking about. ὁ αἰῶν τοῦ κόσμου τούτου is the νῦν he is talking about, a time linked to the corrupt state of this current world.

There may be other reasonable interpretations, but this is what it looks like to me. Does that help?

[Corrected - see below]

Re: The spirit of "νυν" ?

Posted: November 15th, 2024, 12:32 pm
by James Spinti
Jonathan has a good response, but perhaps it would be better to take a look at the whole attributive phrase: τοῦ νῦν ἐνεργοῦντος. I would take the participle, ἐνεργοῦντος, to be governing the νῦν. Hence: "now working," which seems to be the way that most translations take it.

James

Re: The spirit of "νυν" ?

Posted: November 15th, 2024, 1:46 pm
by Jonathan Robie
James Spinti wrote: November 15th, 2024, 12:32 pm Jonathan has a good response, but perhaps it would be better to take a look at the whole attributive phrase: τοῦ νῦν ἐνεργοῦντος. I would take the participle, ἐνεργοῦντος, to be governing the νῦν. Hence: "now working," which seems to be the way that most translations take it.

James
Yes, I agree. So it is misleading to look at τοῦ νῦν as a unit, since τοῦ governs the entire attributive phrase:

τοῦ πνεύματος
the spirit

τοῦ
that

νῦν ἐνεργοῦντος ἐν τοῖς υἱοῖς τῆς ἀπειθείας·
now is at work in the sons of disobedience

Re: The spirit of "νυν" ?

Posted: November 19th, 2024, 8:32 am
by Bbennetch
That is very helpful, both the context of which "spirit" we are talking about and the finer point of what portion του is governing. I yield to your experience. The idea of the spirit of this age is already present in any case in this passage. Thanks for your help.