Ephesians 5:14

Peter Phillips (p.m.phillips@cliff.shef.ac.uk)
Fri, 11 Jul 1997 08:25:58 +0100

How do you parse PAN GAR TO PHANEROUMENON PHWS ESTIN? I think it is
something like this:
PAN - nom/acc sing neut noun/adjective "every"
GAR - particle
TO - nom/acc sing neut def.art. "the"
PHA... - nom/acc sing neut pres. midd/pass participle "being made manifest"
PHWS - nom sing neut noun "light"
ESTIN - 3rd sing pres indic EINAI "is"

So the lit. translation would be "light is everything which is being made
manifest" ???!!!

However, Irenaeus seems to translate the phrase as if PHANEROUMENON is a
deponent - "making manifest", so that he (quoting Ptolemy) ends up with the
phrase "all that makes manifest is light".

Moule say this can't be right and goes with the parsing I sugget as does
Metzger.

Any one got any ideas?

Pete Phillips,
Cliff College, Sheffield, England

p.m.phillips@cliff.shef.ac.uk
http://champness.shef.ac.uk/