[B-Greek] "Because we are" of "Despite our being"? (Acts 17:29)
Elizabeth Kline
kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Mon Mar 1 16:12:00 EST 2010
Donald Cobb wrote:
> In my opinion, the OUN at the beginning of the verse goes in another
> direction: "Therefore, being of the race of God" = "Therefore, since we
> are of the race of God"
>
I reviewed what the reference works [1] had to say about OUN and then took a look at Levinsohn [2] . I assumed that John's narrative use of OUN would be completely unrelated to OUN in logical discourse. I was wrong. Levinsohn divides the use of OUN into two major categories, resumptive and inferential. In both narrative and non-narrative OUN is used to mark a development from what goes before. The resumptive use signals a connection with the preceding context that has been interrupted by a digression which may include supportive material. The inferential use marks a development directly from what proceeds (i.e. no digression). Both resumptive and inferential are developmental in that they build on what is found in the preceding context. "The developmental nature of OUN may be seen ... it's presence assures the reader that what follows is directly related to something preceding" [p. 85 n15].
To really assess the value of this argument you would need to read Levinsohn.
Elizabeth Kline
[1] BDAG, ATR 1191f, N.Turner, G.Cooper
[2] Discourse Features NT Greek, SIL 2000, pages 126-127, see also pages 83-85.
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