Carl's post on the enclitic particle TE has opened up a whole new line of
thought with respect to Acts 1:8. Since the there appear to be three
word-groups, then, that are linked by the KAI, and that these appear to
correspond with Luke's overall outline (the spread of the Gospel witness
from Jerusalem to Rome (FF Bruce mentions that hEWS ESCHATOU THS GHS is
exactly what is written in Psalms of Solomon 8:16 of Pompey when he arrived
from Rome, with the exception of APO), it would seem to me that there is
more than an incidental contextual link between the disciple's question
about the eschatalogical fulfillment of the Kingdom (embodied in the City)
and the starting place for the witness of Christ with DUNAMIS.
I am trying to understand how the promise of DUNAMIS plays into this
contextual link because of the close proximity with what we (little Greeks
that is) ordinarily think of as a synonym, EXOUSIA. In English we make much
of the conceptual link, I suspect because of a great deal of cross
translation, particularly in the familiar KJV. My question is to those of
the list who seem to have a "feel" for Koine, how much of a conceptual link
actually exists? Or, is it more of a figment of our own tranlational
imagination? Is there a conceptual overlap between these words, and does it
go both ways or only from one to other?
I am not trying to ask an interpretive question here, which is beyond the
scope of the list, but I am trying to get at a raw understanding of the
words as they relate to one another, if in fact they do in any significant
way. Most word studies are too mechanical to deal with what I think I am
trying to ask. Synonym studies haven't convinced me that they are not
unduly prejudiced by English concepts of power and authority.
Paul F. Evans
Thunder Swamp Pentecostal Holiness Church
MT. Olive, NC
"Endeavouring to make use of New Testament Greek in a real live ministry!"