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Re: Phil. 2:13, etc.
On Thu, 3 Nov 1994 Dvdmoore@aol.com wrote:
> Dan McCartney has mentioned Colwell's rules for the use of the article
> with predicate nouns in the NT. But don't Phil. 2:13 and the passage
> mentioned, from Rom. 8:33-4, above represent instances of relative clauses in
> the predicate in which Colwell's rules do not apply (Moulton III 183)?
>
> So we translate "God is He who is working in you...." or "It is God who
> is working in you" (I wonder, does the latter make "God" a predicate
> nominative in relation to "It is..."?) In the Romans passage mentioned above
> we could translate "It is God who justifies: who is he who condemns..." But,
> no, it doesn't look as if we could make O( ENERGWN the subject in Phil. 2:13
> nor is O( DIKAIWN the subject en Rom. 8:33. These are participles which
> constitute relative clauses. So we may read "...who empowers," "...who
> justifies."
>
It is tempting to think that O( ENERGWN and O( DIKAIWN 'constitute
relative clauses' because we must use relative clauses to translate them
adequately into English. I doubt seriously, however, if a first century
Greek speaker would have seen them as equivalent to relative clauses. We
see them this way because of OUR language. They are, however, nominalized
clauses as are relative clauses, but of quite a different sort. Whether or
not Colwell's rules apply is another issue.
Micheal Palmer
Mellon Research Fellow in Greek Linguistics
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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