[B-Greek] 2 Thess. 2:6-7--two proposals
Webb
webb at selftest.net
Fri Mar 2 20:06:52 EST 2007
Dear Iver,
My comments to Carl Conrad at least partially address your comments about
the semantics of active versus passive.
In 2 Th 2:7 hO KATECWN ARTI hEWS EK MESOU GENHTAI
"The subject and Patient is hO KATECWN. This "restrainer" will change from
the state of being in the midst (of the evil world) to a state of being
removed to somewhere else not specified."
I don't even begin to go down the path you are taking. On the face of it, EK
MESOU GENHTAI simply means (or may mean--Lattimore is a pretty heavy hitter,
and I don't write him off) to me that the restrainer ends up out of the way
of the revelation of lawless one. He restrains, and then he no longer
restrains; he stands in the way (EN MESWi), then he steps/gets/gets to be
out of the way (EK MESOU). If the writer had intended to say that the
restrainer was going to leave the world, he could with the greatest of ease
have said, hO KATECWN ARTI hEWS EK TOU KOSMOU [TOUTOU] GENHTAI. To go from
MESOS to KOSMOS strikes me as a vast interpretive leap, one which finds no
visible launching pad in the Greek of the current passage. But maybe you
know something I don't.
"Nor is it specified who does the removing, but from the broader Biblical
context we can deduce who the Agent is, and it is not hO KATECWN."
By all means contact me off list if you have some wisdom for me about the
restrainer's relationship to the world and to the lawless one that doesn't
have to do with Greek as such. I'm interested in anything that will shed
more light on this intriguing passage.
Webb Mealy
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