[B-Greek] Hebrews 5:14

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri Mar 11 12:10:57 EST 2011


On Mar 11, 2011, at 11:55 AM, Robert Campanaro wrote:

> Thanks guys. Your comments are very insightful. Until I hear any arguments to the contrary, I'll also go with BDAG. Several issues still persist though. Could
> 
> "δια την εξιν"   and   "τα αισθητηρια γεγθμνασμενα"
> DIA THN hEXIS TA AISQHTHRIA GEGUMNASMENA
> 
> be taken as apposition and thus translated "because of their condition, [that is], their senses having been trained..." If so, then the only part I'm having trouble with is what to do with εχοντων [ECONTWN] It seems to me that  as a participle, it makes this statement dependent. I don't know if this would be a violation of Greek syntax, but if you make it an indicative, then a possible translation might be:

Then perhaps we ought to look at the whole consruction again:

Heb. 5:14 τελείων δέ ἐστιν ἡ στερεὰ τροφή, τῶν διὰ τὴν ἕξιν τὰ αἰσθητήρια γεγυμνασμένα ἐχόντων πρὸς διάκρισιν καλοῦ τε καὶ κακοῦ. 

[Heb. 5:14 TELEIWN DE ESTIN hH STEREA TROFH, TWN DIA THN hEXIN TA AISQHTHRIA GEGUMNASMENA ECONTWN PROS DIAKRISIN KALOU TE KAI KAKOU.]

As can readily be seen, your suggestion is really quite impossible. It is 	TWN .. ECONTWN that is rather in apposition to TELEIWN. Within the participial phrase enclosed by TWN ECONTWN, TA AISQHTERIA is object of ECONTWN and GEGUMNASMENA is predicate acc. with TA AISQHTERIA: "having their senses trained." hEXIN is acc. sg. object of the preposition DIA.
> 
>      "But solid food is for the mature, who because of their condition, [that is] their senses having been trained, have [abilities] for distinguishing good from bad."
> 
> Also, would "bad" be a better choice than "evil" since KAKOS is being contrasted with KALOS.

No; rather the distinction here is clearly moral, so "good" and "evil" are pretty clearly the best English for KAKOS and KALOS. In Koine KALOS is commonly enough used in the sense of "morally good."

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






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