Although several days have passed, I see that there's still been no
response to this post, and for that reason I'll leap in and take a stab at
it.
(a) I think you mean KAINH KTISIS.
(b) I think you should not feel obligated to write in English; go ahead and
write your post in Spanish--some of our members will be able to read it
while others won't; for my part, I think I can understand the Spanish well
enough although I could not possibly respond in it. Certainly there is
nothing in our rules that says English is the only permissible language of
discussion.
I am not altogether clear on what you are trying to argue above, and that's
why I suggest that perhaps you should go on and write in Spanish. I think I
see the sense for KAINH KTISIS that you are arguing FOR, but I can't quite
figure out what interpretation of it that you are arguing AGAINST.
My own understanding of the phrase in 2 Cor 5:17 is that transformation of
the individual believer begins with faith's inception and the believer's
incorporation through baptism into the believing community, the "body" of
Christ, and that from this point the believer lives simultaneously in the
flesh and in "this evil world age" and in the spirit and in "the age to
come." But it is the newly-begun life in "the age to come" that makes it
possible to say that this believer is KAINH KTISIS, "a brand new creature."
Now it may be that some of my own theological assumptions have entered into
the above formulation, but I have really meant to express no more than my
understanding of the way Paul is using his terms within his own
more-or-less consistent phraseology, and I'll readily admit that my
understanding of Paul's phraseology has been shaped by Bultmann's chapter
on "Pauline anthropology" in his _Theology of the NT_.
Now to the more precise point or question: does KTISIS here refer to the
creature or to the whole of creation? I think it refers to BOTH, although
primarily or in the first place to the creature; yet I think it refers to
the whole of creation in a sense also, because the newly-created individual
is not an isolated entity created by God in and for him/herself but rather
is an integral part of the whole process of God's recreation of the
universe, even if the full recreation of the universe has yet to be
consummated.
Now, have I rightly understood your question, and if so, does this help at
all. Now that I've expressed myself, I would expect that others would shoot
down my view or subject it to their own critique.
Regards, cwc
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
--- b-greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek To post a message to the list, mailto:b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, mailto:subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu To unsubscribe, mailto:unsubscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu?subject=[grammateus@sunsite.unc.edu]