[B-Greek] Word order in 2 Cor 5:19
Elizabeth Kline
kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Thu May 10 16:58:55 EDT 2007
On May 9, 2007, at 5:37 AM, Kimmo Huovila wrote:
> On Tuesday 08 May 2007, Elizabeth Kline wrote:
>>
>> On May 7, 2007, at 11:18 AM, Kimmo Huovila wrote:
>>
>>> The word order in 2 Cor 5:19 is interesting.
>>>
>>> How natural do you think the word order would be in an answer to
>>> these
>>> questions? To what questions would the word order be most natural?
>>>
>>> TI ESTI H DIAKONIA THS KATALLAGHS?
>>> TI EPOIEI hO QEOS EN CRISTWi?
>>>
>>> QEOS HN EN CRISTWi KOSMON KATALLASSWN hEAUTWi, MH LOGIZOMENOS
>>> AUTOIS TA
>>> PARAPTWMATA AUTWN KAI QEMENOS EN hHMIN TON LOGON THS KATALLAGHS.
>>
>>
>> 2COR. 5:18 TA DE PANTA EK TOU QEOU TOU KATALLAXANTOS hHMAS hEAUTWi
>> DIA CRISTOU KAI DONTOS hHMIN THN DIAKONIAN THS KATALLAGHS, 19 hWS
>> hOTI QEOS HN EN CRISTWi KOSMON KATALLASSWN hEAUTWi, MH LOGIZOMENOS
>> AUTOIS TA PARAPTWMATA AUTWN KAI QEMENOS EN hHMIN TON LOGON THS
>> KATALLAGHS.
>>
>> A preliminary thought, I am still working on this one, it dosen't
>> seem that v19 answers TI ESTI H DIAKONIA THS KATALLAGHS;. I would
>> read hWS hOTI QEOS HN EN CRISTWi KOSMON KATALLASSWN hEAUTWi, MH
>> LOGIZOMENOS AUTOIS TA PARAPTWMATA AUTWN as an expansion or an
>> explantion of EK TOU QEOU TOU KATALLAXANTOS hHMAS hEAUTWi DIA
>> CRISTOU. There are other possibilties of course.
>>
>
> So would your suggestion be:
> TI ESTIN H KATALLAGE (hHMWN) DIA CRISTOU?
>
> Perhaps the hHMWN should be left out of the question, as the object of
> reconciliation changes in the passage.
>
> There is some parallelism, as you noted, but also an aspectual
> contrast. "We"
> were reconciled in the perfective, but "the world" in the
> imperfective, and
> because of the imperfective aspect there is a need for a perfective
> (aorist)
> imperative for "you" to be reconciled. Not all commentators see the
> aspect in
> this way, but this seems to me to be the most straighforward aspectual
> interpretation.
>
> If I am right with this, the hWS hOTI clause could still be an
> expansion or an
> explanation of some parts of the sentence, but with a contrast of
> object and
> aspect. Finding out the precise meaning of hWS hOTI might shed some
> light on
> this. I have not studied it in detail, but it seems that many
> commentators
> and lexica are somewhat insecure about its precise meaning.
>
>> The placement of KAI QEMENOS EN hHMIN TON LOGON THS KATALLAGHS at the
>> end is parallel to the placement of KAI DONTOS hHMIN THN DIAKONIAN
>> THS KATALLAGHS,
>
> Good point.
>
>> first comes the activity of QEOS reconciling then
>> DONTOS hHMIN THN DIAKONIAN THS KATALLAGHS ... QEMENOS EN hHMIN TON
>> LOGON THS KATALLAGHS. The primary thrust of 19a is to explain what he
>> means by QEOS reconciling.
>>
>> This is just a first cut at this. I am no expert on Paul.
>
> Thanks. How well would you consider "TI EPOIEI hO QEOS EN CRISTWi?"
> fits the
> word order?
You are asking a question about pragmatics and word order? I would
venture the suggestion that hOTI QEOS HN EN CRISTWi KOSMON
KATALLASSWN hEAUTWi answers the question *who* is doing what, not
what was QEOS doing. At this time I am having a hard time formlating
a nice theortical defense for this. Paul states first that TA DE
PANTA EK TOU QEOU ... and I would take QEOS HN EN CRISTWi KOSMON
KATALLASSWN hEAUTWi as an expansion on that idea.
Perhaps later on the fog will clear I will post a better answer,
Elizabeth Kline
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