[B-Greek] Justin and objective genitives
Michael Aubrey
mga318 at yahoo.com
Tue Mar 8 11:01:49 EST 2011
Don't worry. I caught the joke--and laughed.
________________________________
From: Brian Abasciano <bvabasciano at gmail.com>
To: Michael Aubrey <mga318 at yahoo.com>; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Tue, March 8, 2011 8:00:19 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Justin and objective genitives
Mike,
Hopefully you didn’t think I was criticizing your comment. It was perfectly
fine and appropriate. I was just making a little joke. I have immense respect
for Carl’s knowledge of Greek and almost always find myself agreeing with him
(though not always). Having his regular commenting on the list is a real treat.
When I saw your pithy comment, I thought it would be funny to give voice to some
of this with a pithy response.
Brian Abasciano
From: Michael Aubrey
Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 10:48 AM
To: Brian Abasciano ; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Justin and objective genitives
I had started to provide Dr. Ehrman with an actual reply of my own, but I saw
Carl's response before I got very far.
No need for repetition.
But if the question isn't clear...here are a couple more voices of agreement:
Moises Silva's discussion of genitives in his delightful little book
Interpreting Galatians says the essentially the same thing about διʼ
ἀποκαλύψεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (DI' APOKALUPSEWS IHSOU XRISTOU) in Galatians 1:12:
"One could argue that the context itself seems to be leading us in different
directions: the first part of 1:12a suggests a subjective genitive, while 1:16
supports an objective genitive. When faced by a difficult choice of this type,
some interpreters look for a solution that allows them to bypass it.
Accordingly, it has become increasingly popular to argue that genitives could
be both subjective and objective. We are even told that this approach avoids
false dichotomies and that it does more justice to the richness of Paul’s
thought. Unfortunately, this solution confuses concept with grammar, and
perhaps even theologizing with exegesis. It may well be true that both of the
concepts (Christ is the revealer as well as the One revealed) are consonant
with Pauline thought and are related. Moreover, since this very passage teaches
both the divine origin of the gospel and the fact that it came to Paul when God
revealed his Son, we could argue that either interpretation is viable and that
the apostle was merely relating the nouns to each other in a general (indeed,
vague) fashion. But it is important to appreciate that, if we do so, we are not
really saying that the apostle, because of his rich thought, had both
grammatical ideas in mind. Rather, we would be suggesting that he did not have
any specific syntactical connection in view; that is, imprecision, rather than
fullness, characterizes the expression."
Moisés Silva,Interpreting Galatians: Explorations in Exegetical Method, 67-68.
Silva also has a footnote a few pages earlier (page 65n2) here commenting:
"I owe to James Voelz the following observation: What is expressed in Greek
through the genitive case is often expressed in English by simply juxtaposing
two nouns, such as shoe sale, fire sale, garage sale. Note that it is simply our
knowledge of the situational context that makes it perfectly clear to us that
the first example is the equivalent of an objective genitive (a store is selling
shoes); the second, something like a genitive of source (selling goods rescued
from a fire); the third, genitive of place (selling goods in a garage). In other
words, we are dealing with a very elementary and simple phenomenon."
http://www.amazon.com/Interpreting-Galatians-Explorations-Exegetical-Method/dp/080102305X
Silva's book is one of the few handbooks/introductions to exegetical method
that I find tolerable--and thankfully, I also find it much, much more than
merely "tolerable"!
Mike Aubrey
http://evepheso.wordpress.com
________________________________
From: Brian Abasciano <bvabasciano at gmail.com>
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Tue, March 8, 2011 7:09:02 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Justin and objective genitives
Mike said "Carl is right."
Isn't he usually?
Brian Abasciano
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