From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Fri Jul 05 1996 - 06:56:44 EDT
At 12:32 AM -0400 7/5/96, David L. Moore wrote:
> It is not surprising to be able to find scholars who support one
>position or
>another on this particular passage since it has been so often commented
>and since it is
>full of so many, and such diverse difficulties for the interpreter.
>
> With the array of interpretations on this verse among scholars in
>mind, I will
>state that there are sound reasons to understand EN MORFH QEOU as the
>referent of TO
>EINAI ISA QEWi. If this is what Kennedy is negating, then his statement
>might be
>criticized for holding a very constricted concept of "text" and for not
>taking into
>account a number of grammatical and philological reasons that apear to
>negate his
>position It is probably good to point out, however, that some of these
>reasons have
>come into the discussion on this verse subsequent to Kennedy's work
>(published in 1912).
. . .
> I have already pointed out the characteristic double accusatives
>with hHGEOMAI
>in the sense of "consider." This IMO rules out making TO EINAI ISA QEWi a
>restatement
>of hARPAGMON, as Al Kidd has suggested, but rather indicates that the most
>logical
>referent for TO EINAI ISA QEWi, which should be taken as anaphoric, is EN
>MORFHi QEOU
>hUPARXWN. Other passages show the articuar infinitive referring back to
>previously
>mentioned material. Consider for instance Rom. 7:18 TO GAR QELEIN
>PARAKEITAI MOI, TO
>KATERGAZESQAI TO KALON OU, where these infinitives refer back to what Paul
>has said in
>vv. 15-17. Or take 2 Cor. 7:11, IDOU GAR AUTO TOUTO TO KATA QEON
>LUPHQHNAI, where the
>infinitive has for referent the godly grief spoken of in v. 10.
>
> Kennedy's statement that there is nothing in the text to justify
>the supposition
>that EN MORFHi QEOU hUPARXWN corresponds to TO EINAI ISA QEWi shows that
>he is talking
>about the *text* in the narrowest sense of the word. It is precisely the
>Apostle Paul's
>Christology, in terms of the larger context, which indicates that EN
>MORFHi QEOU
>hUPARXWN should not be understood as something equal to the KAT' EIKONA
>QEOU reference
>to Adam (Gen. 1:27 [LXX]) and which indicates that, rather, Christ's
>heavenly state is
>being described. Elsewere, Paul indicates that it is through Christ that
>all things
>were created (Col. 1:16, 17). We have this same thought about Christ's
>prior, heavenly
>state in figurative terms in 2Cor. 8:9 "that, being rich, He made himself
>poor, that
>you, by His poverty might be made rich."
>
> If there is, as some who have written more recently than Kennedy
>have said, an
>allusion to Adam in Phil. 2:6 and similar passages, it would need to fall
>into the
>Apostle Paul's concept of Christ as the second Adam, as the Apostle says
>in 1Cor. 15:47
>"The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven."
Without citing the whole text of David's 2nd response to response and what
it responded to, I'd just like to underscore what I think has been a
central point in the chief line of this thread, namely that hHGEOMAI cannot
be (is not) used absolutely in the sense "think of," "consider;" raher, it
is regularly used with the double accusative equating an accusative object
(as here, TO EINAI ISA QEWi) to an accusative predicate substantive (as
here the emphatically-initially-placed hARPAGMON.
It struck me that in the initial discussion of Phil 2:6 by Al Kidd there
was a strange and unnecessary argument about the article TO used with EINAI
here. It is, I really think, the article used with the infinitive to
indicate clearly the primary (subject) accusative with which hARPAGMON, as
a substantive predicate accusative, is equated by hHGHSATO.
I may add that I am also one of those odd balls who is inclined to
understand this passage in an Adamic sense, as I set forth in a lengthy
thread back in March of 1995 on this list (in the midst of flame and
furious fretting!). This passage may not be as puzzling and complex as the
whole controversial dialogue of Peter and Jesus in John 21, but it has
provided plenty of grist for the B-Greek mill.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:37:46 EDT