Page 1 of 1
Anarthrous πίστις, Heb 11:1
Posted: August 2nd, 2016, 12:23 pm
by Barry Hofstetter
Ἔστιν δὲ πίστις ἐλπιζομένων ὑπόστασις, πραγμάτων ἔλεγχος οὐ βλεπομένων
What is the effect of having πίστις without the article here? One commentator suggests:
Faith (πίστις). Without the article, indicating that it is treated in its abstract conception, and not merely as Christian faith.
Vincent, M. R. (1887). Word studies in the New Testament (Vol. 4, p. 509). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Vincent is a bit dated, of course, but that thought occurred to me before I started poking around. What bothers me about it is that πίστις is by definition an abstract noun, with or without the article, and abstract nouns may take the article, but don't thereby change into something more concrete. Thoughts, before I share my own conclusions?
Re: Anarthrous πίστις, Heb 11:1
Posted: August 2nd, 2016, 6:40 pm
by Stirling Bartholomew
R. A. Hoyle 2008 has covered this in great detail. Chapter Six, Richard A. Hoyle, Scenarios, discourse and translation. SIL 2008
http://www.sil.org/silepubs/Pubs/50670/ ... lation.pdf
Re: Anarthrous πίστις, Heb 11:1
Posted: August 3rd, 2016, 10:39 am
by Barry Hofstetter
Thanks, Stirling. While I haven't worked through how to use all the authors technical terminology, the idea that this is a "new scenario" strikes a chord.
Re: Anarthrous πίστις, Heb 11:1
Posted: August 3rd, 2016, 12:34 pm
by Stirling Bartholomew
Yes, the terminology while not at all new, will be foreign to classical philologists. I first heard about scenarios about 30 years ago over lunch in a mexican restaurant in Issaquah Wash with Randy Groves, a colleague who was at that time the Unix SysAd for artificial intelligence group at the advanced technology center of Boeing Computer Services. I used to make heavy use of advanced technology library. We were not exactly over loaded with work at that time. I think the framework Hoyle is utilizing was already somewhat old thirty years ago.
This is the thought that was running through my mind in reference to Anarthrous πίστις, Heb 11:1.
6.5. The Greek article and Information Status Taxonomy
My analysis of the Greek use of the article can be diagrammed in the form of a grid,
with one axis related to salience, and the other related to information status. The box
Hearer-new/nonsalient is blank, as Hearer-new information is by definition salient:
Salient Nonsalient
Hearer-new −article
Hearer-old −article +article
So lack of the article in Greek marks salience, and must be used for Hearer-new
entities of the category 1 NEW. In contrast, use of the article marks Hearer-old information,
and occurs with every category except 1 NEW, unless the Hearer-old entity is
being explicitly marked as salient. These Hearer-old categories can be thought of as
“known, particular” where “known” means “expected by the speaker to be in the hearer’s
short or long-term memory”, and “particular” means that the speaker expects the hearer
to be able to identity which referent out of the potentially enormous number of
possibilities is being referred to.
Richard A. Hoyle, Scenarios, discourse and translation. SIL 2008
http://www.sil.org/silepubs/Pubs/50670/ ... lation.pdf
Re: Anarthrous πίστις, Heb 11:1
Posted: August 6th, 2016, 11:01 am
by Robert Crowe
Rom 3:22
δικαιοσύνη δὲ θεοῦ διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς πάντας τοῦς πιστεύοντας.
This statement can only make good sense if πίστις has different meanings, otherwise the verbal use is tautological. It makes better sense if there is a difference between πίστος 'faith' an elusive concept with different possible aspirations (as is evident from Heb 11), and πίστος 'belief' a concrete concept (one either believes or one doesn't).