[B-Greek] Justin and objective genitives

Ehrman, Bart D behrman at email.unc.edu
Tue Mar 8 11:05:00 EST 2011


      Thanks for the reference to Moises's interesting comments.

      My problem is that apocalypsis is precisely the kind of noun that one could expect to be able to find used with subjective and objective genitives, as these are traditionally defined (I'm not affirming the category).  It is an "active" noun.   My question is about other kinds of nouns, which do not imply action.  In other words, I'm not asking how to determine whether a genitive is objective or subjective.  I'm asking whether these categories apply to non-active nouns like "memoir."   And if so -- I'm neutral on the point for now! -- what would be some examples?

-- Bart Ehrman

Bart D. Ehrman
James A. Gray Professor
Department of Religious Studies
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

http://www.bartdehrman.com






-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of 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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