Corpus-Paul

["Stevan Davies" <miser17 AT epix.net>]

> >Ron
> >I agree that EN EMOI cannot be stretched to cover a subjective experience,
> >since it is not language that Paul uses elsewhere for "second sight." 

I'm not sure what this means, but "second sight," whatever it is, does 
not encompass the whole of subjective experience.

>  And
> >yet, to argue that EN with EMOI is "little more than an *emphasized*
> >version of EMOI on its own" muddles the issue (what *sort* of emphasis
> >would this be?).  For examples of EN + dative as indirect object, see BGD
> >p. 261 (4.a).
> 
> Section 4.a. of BAGD's discussion of EN is not limited to indirect objects;
> in fact, section 4.a. lists examples where EN+Dative is equivalent to the
> ordinary dative. That's not much different from saying that 'EN with EMOI
> is "little more than an *emphasized* version of EMOI on its own"'. BAGD
> lists Gal 1:16 in this category.

> I'm not sure that EN EMOI has one fixed meaning.

Surely you are correct.

> Consider the following:
 
> Gal 1:16 APOKALUYAI TON hUION AUTOU *EN EMOI*
> Gal 1:24 KAI EDOXAZEN *EN EMOI* TON QEON
> 2Cor 13:3 EPEI DOKIMHN ZHTEITE TOU *EN EMOI* LALOUNTOS CRISTOU, hOS EIS
> hUMAS OUK ASQENEI ALLA DUNATEI *EN hUMIN*
 
> I agree with you, however, that as far as I can tell, "EN EMOI cannot be
> stretched to cover a subjective experience," at least in Gal 1:16.

In these passages Paul speaks of the revealing of the Son in him,
Christ living in him, Christ speaking in him. (Substitute your 
preferrred prepositions ad lib.)  In each case surely some subjective 
experience is presupposed. How the revelation of God's Son was not
a subjective experience is beyond me. 

Let's take 2 Cor 13:3. What models are available for understanding?

1. Christ lives in Paul and speaks through Paul on occasion. This 
would be a possession model, and assumes Christ and Spirit of Christ
are the same thing.

2. Christ lives in Paul metaphorically and speaks through Paul in
the sense that Paul's opinons reflect what he thinks Christ's 
opinions would have been. I suppose this is a protestant-preacher
model.

3. I await your telling me....

But in light of the fact that Paul believes that people do indeed 
have an external persona living within them and acting through them
I'm prone to think the first is most consistent with Paul' overall
view of things. At its outset I do think Christians interpreted 
experiences to indicate that external personae entered them to
dwelt in them and acted through them, which is the ordinary 
possessionist perspective. Within the Christian vocabulary that 
persona was generally called "spirit." By and large, the spirit was 
an explanation for forms of experience rather than the abstract 
pneumatological presumption it later became. 

Steve Davies
College Misericordia