Re: Romans 1:17 EK PISTEWS EIS PISTIN

Jonathan Robie (jwrobie@mindspring.com)
Thu, 27 Feb 1997 21:01:46 -0500

At 11:34 AM 2/27/97 -0800, Micheal Palmer wrote:
>At 1:03 PM -0500 2/26/97, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>>Roma 1:17 (GNT) dikaiosunh gar qeou en autw apokaluptetai ek pistews eis
>>pistin, kaqws gegraptai: ho de dikaios ek pistews zhsetai.
>>
>>What a curious phrase! What does this "ek X+gen eis X+acc" mean? It seems
>>parallel to 2 Cor 2:16, which I don't understand either:
>>
>>2Cor 2:16 (GNT) ois men osmh ek qanatou eis qanaton, ois de osmh ek zwhs eis
>>zwhn. kai pros tauta tis ikanos;
>
>Jonathan:
>
>I like to translate these phrases treating EK as "on the basis of" or
>something similar (a notion which it has in MANY contexts) and EIS as an
>indicator of goal, "to bring about X", a sense which it has in a number of
>contexts in Paul (See for example Romans 1:5 EIS UPAKOHN PISTEWS = to bring
>about the obedience of faith).
>
>This reading renders the relevant part of Romans 1:17 as follows:
>
> For in it the righteousness of God is revealed on the basis of
> faith to bring about faith. . .
>
>Paul's point would be that it is only through faith that we can see that
>God is righteous (or that righteousness comes from God), yet at the same
>time, it is this same recognition which inspires or brings about faith--a
>rather profound paradox which seems to me to be central to much of Paul's
>thinking.

Hmmm...this agrees with Robertson's Word Pictures:

Subjective genitive: "a God kind of righteousness," one that
each must have and can obtain in no way save "from faith to
faith" (EK PISTEWS EIS PISTIN), faith the starting point
and faith the goal (Lightfoot).

I like that.

Jonathan

The sun, the wind, the greenness of trees,
ignoring my petty fears,
outweigh them.

***************************************************************************
Jonathan Robie
POET Software, 3207 Gibson Road, Durham, N.C., 27703
Ph: 919.598.5728 Fax: 919.598.6728
email: jwrobie@mindspring.com, jonathan@poet.com
http://www.poet.com <--- shockwave enabled!
***************************************************************************