[B-Greek] Ephesians 2:3 - TEKNA FUSEI ORGHS

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Wed Mar 31 07:17:21 EDT 2010


On Mar 30, 2010, at 4:34 PM, Yancy Smith wrote:
> Really this FUSEI has got to be adverbial, but as an adverbial with a copulative verb it also has an intimate relationship with the predicate NP, TEKNA ORGHS. Why not? A distinction needs to be made between what adverbs do with action verbs and copulative verbs.
> 
> But FUSEI, as has been observed on this thread is out of unmarked order, which, for Paul would be more like the order in Gal 2:15. The marked order or, out-of-unmarked-order, requires additional processing that we perceive as emphasis. And TEKNA ORGHS is a set phrase, a variation on τοῖς υἱοῖς τῆς ἀπειθείας TOIS hUIOIS THS APEIQEIAS.
> 
> At some point one has to guess at the intended relevance of what someone says in Greek or otherwise. I am inclined to think that the odd word order choice "Paul" made here is a result his desire to achieve a certain poetic effect. The "sons of disobedience" would be a phrase good Jews would associate with non-Jews and bad Jews. But when Paul uses KAI hHMEIS HMEQA TEKNA FUSEI ORGHS the KAI closely associates hHMEIS (Paul and his Jewish people) with the Gentiles and places them all in the same category, as lost children.
> 
> 
> Yancy
> PS I did this without using the word Semitism. (Patting myself on the back. I'm learning how to speak B-Greek.)

Ah, but can you speak Linguistisch?  Could you utter or write the verb "grammaticalize" without a feeling deep in the pit of your stomach that an indecency has been committed against our mother tongue? On that point Don Wilkins and I are in full agreement. I think I can accept "encode" -- but "grammaticalize" has the gracious sound and alluring odor of an echt Barbarismus.

I continue to be uncomfortable with this formulation, HMEQA TEKNA FUSEI ORGHS. I'd like to understand FUSEI as adverbial with HMEQA, but I can't see any fully satisfactory accounting for the position of FUSEI between TEKNA and ORGHS. We've explored the thought that FUSEI might be being used in an adjectival sense: "We were REAL goners." That would, I think be a colloquial English rendering of the sense. Older Attic Greek would have expressed this, I think, with ONTWS: HMEQA ONTWS TEKNA ORGHS or with a word like GENNAIOS; HMEQA GENNAIA TEKNA ORGHS (in which case the word order TEKNA GENNAIA ORGHS would be acceptable).

Nor do I fell comfortable talking about "marked" and "unmarked" order here. I still find the word-order, TEKNA FUSEI ORGHS, very disturbing, perhaps as disturbing as those opening verses of Ephesians that don't seem to fall into a really meaningful order and sequence. I guess I'm just not satisfied with any explanation I've yet seen, and I toy with the thought that that the writer made a mistake in the placement of this FUSEI, a mistake that never got corrected. Or did it? Tischendorf's apparatus shows that several copyists wrote FUSEI TEKNA ORGHS and several others wrote TEKNA ORGHS FUSEI. Nobody seems to think that our text, HMEQA TEKNA FUSEI ORGHS, isn't the earliest form, but it's evident that others besides myself have felt that the order with FUSEI sandwiched between TEKNA and ORGHS is somewhat fishy.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)

> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Carl Conrad
> Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 3:16 PM
> To: Richard Lindeman
> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Ephesians 2:3 - TEKNA FUSEI ORGHS
> 
> On Mar 30, 2010, at 3:51 PM, Richard Lindeman wrote:
>> EN hOIS KAI hHMEIS PANTES ANESTRAFHMEN POTE EN TAIS EPIQUMIAIS THS SARKOS
>> hHMWN POIOUNTES TA QELHMATA THS SARKOS KAI TWN DIANOIWN, KAI HMEQA TEKNA
>> FUSEI ORGHS hWS KAI hOI LOIPOI
>> 
>> It’s another one of those form/function things. A noun in the dative case
>> (form) seems to lend itself well for either adjectival or adverbial usage
>> (function)?? 
>> It causes me to wonder which is the more prevalent usage for dative nouns
>> (adjectival or adverbial function).  It also causes me to wonder about
>> dative case usage here. If FUSEI is functioning as an adverb the dative case
>> usage vanishes entirely.  I don’t think that makes sense. Actually, I am
>> having trouble seeing FUSEI as being construed in any way with the verb.
>> Shouldn’t it would remain adjectival either in relation to “We”, the subject
>> of HMEQA or in relation to TEKNA?
> 
> Can you adduce other examples of a dative noun functioning adjectivally?
> 
> Here are all the instances of FUSEI dative that I can find in the GNT:
> 
> Rom. 2:14 ὅταν γὰρ ἔθνη τὰ μὴ νόμον ἔχοντα φύσει τὰ τοῦ νόμου ποιῶσιν, οὗτοι νόμον μὴ ἔχοντες ἑαυτοῖς εἰσιν νόμος· 
> Rom. 2:14 hOTAN GAR EQNH TA MH NOMON ECONTA FUSEI TA TOU NOMOU POIWSIN, hOUTOI NOMON MH ECONTES hEAUTOIS EISIN NOMOS· 
> 
> Gal. 2:15 Ἡμεῖς φύσει Ἰουδαῖοι καὶ οὐκ ἐξ ἐθνῶν ἁμαρτωλοί· 
> Gal. 2:15 hHMEIS FUSEI IOUDAIOI KAI OUK EX EQNWN hAMARTWLOI· 
> 
> Gal. 4:8 	Ἀλλὰ τότε μὲν οὐκ εἰδότες θεὸν ἐδουλεύσατε τοῖς φύσει μὴ οὖσιν θεοῖς· 
> Gal. 4:8 	ALLA TOTE MEN OUK EIDOTES QEON EDOULEUSATE TOIS FUSEI MH OUSIN QEOIS· 
> 
> Eph. 2:3 ἐν οἷς καὶ ἡμεῖς πάντες ἀνεστράφημέν ποτε ἐν ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν ποιοῦντες τὰ θελήματα τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ τῶν διανοιῶν, καὶ ἤμεθα τέκνα φύσει ὀργῆς ὡς καὶ οἱ λοιποί· 
> Eph. 2:3 EN hOIS KAI hHMEIS PANTES ANESTRAFHMEN POTE EN TAIS EPIQUMIAIS THS SARKOS hHMWN POIOUNTES TA QELHMATA THS SARKOS KAI TWN DIANOIWN, KAI HMEQA TEKNA FUSEI ORGHS hWS KAI hOI LOIPOI· 
> 
> James 3:7 πᾶσα γὰρ φύσις θηρίων τε καὶ πετεινῶν, ἑρπετῶν τε καὶ ἐναλίων δαμάζεται καὶ δεδάμασται τῇ φύσει τῇ ἀνθρωπίνῃ, 
> James 3:7 PASA GAR FUSIS QHRIWN TE KAI PETEINWN, hERPETWN TE KAI ENALIWN DAMAZETAI KAI DEDAMASTAI THi FUSEI THi ANQRWPINHi, 
> 
> Apart from Eph 2:3, where I'm inclined to expect that FUSEI is adverbial with HMEQA, it is adverbial with POIWSIN in Rom 2:14, adverbial with an implicit ESMEN in Gala 2:15, adverbial with the participle OUSIN in Gal 4:8, and adverbial with DAMAZETAI KAI DEDAMASTAI in James 3:7.
> 
> 
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
> 
>>> 
>>> Well, it may well be that Mark is right about what the author is saying here
>>> about TEKNA FUSEI ORGHS. But I continue to be bothered by the
>>> linguistic formulation wherein the dative noun appears to be used as
>>> if adjectivally with the noun phrase TEKNA ORGHS.
>>> 
>>> C'est bon, c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre! It was said.
>>> 
>>> I say, TEKNA FUSEI ORGHS seems intelligible enough, but is it
>>> acceptable Greek?
>>> 
>>> To which the question is asked: "What do YOU know about what's
>>> acceptable Greek?"
>>> 
>>> To which I reply: if you have to think twice about what the phrase
>>> you read/hear means, there's more than meets the eye/ear in it.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Carl W. Conrad
>>> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>>> 
>>>> --- On Mon, 3/29/10, Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> From: Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
>>>> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Ephesians 2:3 - TEKNA FUSEI ORGHS
>>>> To: "Mark Lightman" <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>
>>>> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org, rhutchin at aol.com
>>>> Date: Monday, March 29, 2010, 12:13 PM
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Mar 28, 2010, at 6:04 PM, Mark Lightman wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> --- On Sun, 3/28/10, rhutchin at aol.com <rhutchin at aol.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> <For the following phrases:
>>>>> 
>>>>> ...TEKNA FUSEI hORGHS...
>>>>> 
>>>>> ...FUSEI TEKNA hORGHS...
>>>>> 
>>>>> ...TEKNA hORGHS FUSEI...
>>>> 
>>>> Quibble: the word is ORGHS: there's no rough breathing on this noun.
>>>> 
>>>>> Does the ordering of the words change how one
>>>>> might understand what the writer means to say
>>>>> or how a person might translate the phrase?>
>>>>> 
>>>>> No,  Not only is Greek word order flexible enough
>>>>> to cover all three arrangements with little or no difference
>>>>> in meaning, it is MORE than flexible enough to do this.
>>>>> It's flexible enough, I mean, to do even MORE than this.
>>>> 
>>>> I'm not so sure about this one.
>>>> 
>>>> Text: 
>>>> Eph. 2:3 ?? ??? ??? ????? ?????? ???????????? ???? ?? ???? ?????????? ???
>>>> ?????? ???? ????????? ?? ???????? ??? ?????? ??? ??? ????????, ??? ?????
>>>> ????? ????? ????? ?? ??? ?? ???????
>>>> [EN hOIS KAI hHMEIS PANTES ANESTRAFHMEN POTE EN TAIS EPIQUMIAIS THS SARKOS
>>>> hHMWN POIOUNTES TA QELHMATA THS SARKOS KAI TWN DIANOIWN, KAI HMEQA TEKNA
>>>> FUSEI ORGHS hWS KAI hOI LOIPOI?]
>>>> 
>>>> The earlier discussion on this verse focused altogether upon the phase TEKNA
>>>> ORGHS. I don't think anything was said about FUSEI here, and as I think about
>>>> it, its position in the text between TEKNA and ORGHS seems less than
>>>> transparent to me. I would have supposed that FUSEI construes with HMEQA or
>>>> else with the whole clause HMEQA TEKNA ORGHS. The positioning of FUSEI in our
>>>> text between TEKNA and ORGHS strikes me as strange, as I don't really see how
>>>> the dative noun can construe with either the nominative or the genitive noun,
>>>> as if it were adjectival ("natural children of wrath"). I really think the
>>>> sense in the larger context must be: "we really were, in our inmost essence,
>>>> condemned."
>>>> 
>>>> Mark may be right, claiming that any of Roger's suggested word-orders is as
>>>> good as any other. But I'm not convinced. Does anyone think that FUSEI is
>>>> intended by the author to be construed with the noun phrase TEKNA ORGHS
>>>> rather than with the verb of the clause?
>>>> 
>>>> Carl W. Conrad
>>>> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)








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