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  • From: "Chris Tilling" <chris AT christilling.de>
  • To: <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Corpus-Paul] Letters of recommendation and the tricky genitive
  • Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 18:16:29 +0200

Dear all,

Perhaps some of you can help me with two questions:

1) I wonder if anyone could suggest anything to read about the 1st
century usage of letters of recommendation? I'm getting into a fix
over the genitive (letter of Christ) in 2 Cor 3:3 as many recent
German works understand this as an objective genitive (i.e. that
Christ is content of the letter - which somewhat throws a spanner in
the works in relation to my argument in this section). In light of
the usual reasoning for a subjective genitive reading (i.e. that
Christ is author of the letter) I feel I ought to pursue a brief
examination on the practice and theory of 'recommendation letter'
writing. Any ideas?

2) Can you point me in the direction of any monographs or articles
that discuss the function of the Greek genitive in more depth. I
know this is like asking for good books on Paul, but any suggestions
are welcome! I have a book in front of me by Eve-Marie Becker
(Schreiben und Verstehen) that argues the genitive in 2 Cor 3:3 is
both objective and subjective. I'm sure this will have been
attempted in relation to pistis Christou as well, but I'm just not
confident about some of the semantic issues involved here. Any
articles or books come to mind?

Many thanks for any help,

Chris Tilling
Tübingen
http://www.christilling.de/blog/ctblog.html (Blog)



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