[B-Greek] "monon" - I Cor. 15:19
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Tue Mar 27 15:05:51 EST 2007
EI EN ZWHi TAUTHi EN XRISTWi HLPIKOTES ESMEN MONON, ELEEINOTEROI PANTWN ANQRWPWN ESMEN
Anthony is correct that the thought here requires that MONON refer to "in this life." You will note that what we have is the protasis of a conditional sentence with a prepositional phrase which functions adverbially (EN ZWHi TAUTHi) to define the limits of when one hopes. Similarly, MONON functions as an adverb and refers back to the adverbial prepositional phrase. The following verse sets up the contrast
NUNI DE XRISTOS EGHGERTAI EK NEKRWN …
george
gfsomsel
_________
----- Original Message ----
From: Anthony Buzzard <anthonybuzzard at mindspring.com>
To: Dave <jer2329 at preteristcosmos.com>; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 3:49:46 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] "monon" - I Cor. 15:19
Dave, I would have thought that the context requires the meaning "if
we have hope in this life only...."
Paul's point is that without a hope for resurrection life
post-Parousia, we are in a sorry state."
Apart from the context, the Greek could be taken in various ways. But
the other ways would not seem to follow the flow of Paul's thought.
Anthony Buzzard.
At 03:38 PM 3/27/2007, Dave wrote:
>Hello. I'm new to this list. Thank you for having me.
>
>I have a question about the translation of the first part of I Cor. 15:19.
>As I understand it, there are four grammatical possibilities as to where to
>place the word "monon" (alone/only) in this clause:
>
>1. "If in this LIFE ONLY we have hoped in Christ...." (Monon modifies
>"life.")
>2. "If in this life we have had ONLY HOPE in Christ...." (Monon modifies
>"hope.")
>3. "If in this life we have hoped ONLY in CHRIST...." (Monon modifies
>"Christ.")
>4. "If in this life WE ALONE have hoped in Christ...." (Monon modifies
>"alone.")
>
>The translators have precluded options #3 & #4. My question is this: Is
>the rejection of those two options purely for _contextual_ and _theological_
>reasons? Or are there also _grammatical_ reasons to preclude options #3 &
>#4?
>
>In other words, if someone were to walk into a room and blurt out, without
>any context, the Greek sentence, "In this life we have hoped in Christ
>alone," what would be the grammatically most natural/probable meaning of
>that sentence with no context? Are all four of the possible meanings
>equally likely from a grammatical standpoint? Or are some of them more
>grammatically "awkward" than others? How would you arrange the above four
>context-less translations from grammatically least likely to grammatically
>most likely?
>
>Thank you in advance for your help.
>
>Dave :)
>---
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Anthony Buzzard
www.restorationfellowship.org
---
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