Aha! Now I see, and now I remember that this is exactly what the KJV says:
"those who have fallen asleep in Jesus." And I really don't see how the
Greek text can possibly yield that meaning, which is why I said that I
think DIA IHSOU must construe rather with AXEI in the other clause. If DIA
IHSOU must construe with TOUS KOIMHQENTAS, perhaps the explanation offered
for this translation is that the fact that the dead are ONLY sleeping is
accounted for by the agency of Jesus. On the other hand, I've read
(somewhere or other) that standard rabbinical doctrine was that ALL the
dead "sleep" until the day of resurrection and judgment--and only AFTER
judgment do those condemned in judgment go to their everlasting doom. I
don't want to get into eschatological doctrine itself here; but the
fundamental question of what DIA IHSOU can mean here does seem to me to
depend on the sense in which DIA IHSOU could possibly modify TOUS
KOIMHQENTAS--and that may just possibly depend on the eschatological
assumptions underlying what Paul is here saying.
I can only repeat, however, that I really don't see how DIA TOU IHSOU with
KOIMHQENTAS can mean what either KJV or NIV conveys it to mean. I'm not
saying that KJV and NIV are wrong, only that I don't understand how they
can construe the Greek to mean that.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/