Re: Romans 7:21 TWi QELONTI EMOI, TON NOMON

Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Thu, 20 Feb 1997 09:08:34 -0600

I sent this response to Lee Martin off-list before I realized that he had
in fact sent the same message to which I was responding to the list. So,
for what it's worth, here's my (tentative) answer to his question.

>Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 08:46:11 -0600
>To: "Lee R. Martin" <lmartin@voyageronline.net>
>From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
>Subject: Re: Romans 7:21 TWi QELONTI EMOI, TON NOMON
>Cc:
>Bcc:
>X-Attachments:
>
>At 10:23 AM -0600 2/20/97, Lee R. Martin wrote:
>>Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>>>
>>> At 11:56 AM -0600 2/19/97, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>>> >I'm still throwing inkpots at participles, but I've gotten through
>>>Romans 7,
>>> >and I think I now understand most of it pretty well
>>>
>>> Do participles become better participles for having inkpots thrown at them?
>>> (Fear not, I DO recognize the allusion).
>>>
>>> >(thanks for all your
>>> >help, folks!). I have one remaining grammatical question, this time on
>>> >Romans 7:21:
>>> >
>>> >Romans 7:21 hEURISKW ARA TON NOMON, TWi QELONTI EMOI POIEIN TO KALON, hOTI
>>> >EMOI TO KAKON PARAKEITAI
>>> >
>>> >Zerwick translates TWi QELONTI EMOI "when I want".
>>>
>>> This is the meaning, but it's not literal, of course.
>>>
>>> >I don't know if I
>>> >understand the grammar well enough to follow this. Can I think of this as
>>> >"to me, [who is] wanting to do good", or is there something else I should
>>> >understand here?
>>>
>>> Yes, precisely.
>>>
>>
>>Is it possible that TWi QELONTI EMOI could be construed as a dative
>>(locative, a la Robertson) of time? Thus, the translation "when."
>
>I wouldn't call this locative at all, I think the dative (EMOI) is
>governed ultimately by the verb PARAKEITAI, and that TWi QELONTI is
>actually appositional to EMOI. Despite the fact that QELONTI has an
>article with it, I think it still has something of that circumstantial
>force; it could be translated either with a relative (adjectival) or an
>adverbial clause, I think:
>
> "For me, the one who wills to do good, the available option is evil"
>OR:
> "For me, whenever I will to do good, the available option is evil."
>
>I'm not sure that the difference between these two ways of looking at it
>is a very sharp one. (but I could very well be wrong!)
>
>Regards, cwc
>
>
>
>

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/