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b-greek-digest V1 #759
b-greek-digest Wednesday, 21 June 1995 Volume 01 : Number 759
In this issue:
MORFH, EIKWN, LOGOS, THEOLOGY & ANTHROPOLOGY
Phil 2:6 OUX hARPAGMON hHGHSATO
Re: Phil 2:6, word order/grammar
Re: Scribes
Re: MORFH, EIKWN, LOGOS, THEOLOGY & ANTHROPOLOGY
Paper available on text types in Luke
eikon
Re: Text types in Luke (fwd)
Christ-hymn
Re: MORFH, EIKWN, LOGOS, THEOLOGY & ANTHROPOLOGY
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Carl W Conrad <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 07:03:34 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: MORFH, EIKWN, LOGOS, THEOLOGY & ANTHROPOLOGY
Our discussion of the Christ-Hymn in Philippians 2, it appears to me, has
brought to light several of the problematic aspects of this text while at
the same time revealing some of the range of theological perspective--from
conservative/evangelical to liberal (or perhaps this should be phrased,
from a "Christology-from-above" perspective to one of "Christology from
below." Inspired, encouraged, or perhaps "aided and abetted" by off-list
messages from William Brooks and Lynn Cooley in response to my question
about how the Genesis 1:26 phrase, "image of God" is understood, I have
been pondering some issues that transcend the nuances of NT Greek
phraseology although they remain deeply rooted in those nuances. If they
did not relate closely to the Greek phraseology I would hesitate to put
them up for discussion here, as they are fundamentally theological, but
theology is perhaps the end for which most of us engage in this discussion
of the Greek of the NT, wherefore I do proceed.
(1) MORFH & EIKWN: Larry Hurtado has stated that the word MORFH, which
others and I have wanted to associated with the Genesis 1:26 assertion that
humanity was created in "the image of God," is never used by Paul in that
sense or generally in the NT. He says that the LXX uses EIKWN to translate
the phrase in Genesis 1:26, and that, although we should not understand
MORFH in Phil 2 in an Aristotelian but rather in a much more flexible
sense, it must, in the phrase MORFH QEOU, refer somehow to God's status. I
hope I have not misrepresented what Larry said.
Now it seems to me of some importance for the interpretation of this
passage whether we view the Christ-Hymn to be in fact a Pauline composition
or a citation from a liturgical composition of some unknown writer. If it
IS the latter, then we cannot refer to Pauline vocabulary for the usage of
MORFH in the hymn, and there exists a possibility that the unknown author
may, in fact, have understood MORFH in the Genesis 1:26 sense of God's
image. I think, however, that this is far too speculative to entertain very
seriously. So long as it is not insisted that MORFH QEOU has ontological
reference to God's "essential quality," I shall not find a fundamental
problem in the usage of MORFH in both phrases, MORFH QEOU and MORFHN
DOULOU.
(2) I would like to extend the discussion to theological implications of
the word EIKWN QEOU, particularly as it appears in Colossians 1:15. Here
the phrase is developed in association with Christ as the "first-born of
cretion, in whom all things have been created." Nevertheless, inasmuch as
the verse says that Christ is the EIKWN of God who is invisible, it is
surely implied that Christ somehow reveals to us something about God whom
we cannot see. So I ask: what, precisely, is it about God whom we cannot
see that is revealed in Christ?
We are no longer talking about Paul, but rather about the NT as a whole.
Is there any POSITIVE CONTENT to the phrase EIKWN QEOU? Or is it "simply"
;=) a term used to establish the concept of incarnation? Surely it is AT
LEAST that: we are to SEE in the historical Jesus what we may ever be able
to UNDERSTAND about the nature of God? Correct me, please, if I err here:
is that a valid reading?
If it is, then this is also a primary assertion of the prologue of John's
gospel, especially of 1:18: QEON OUDEIS hEWRAKEN PWPOTE; MONOGENHS QEOS hO
WN EIS TON KOLPON TOU PATROS EKEINOS EXHGHSATO. The LOGOS is the instrument
of God's communication/revelation to humanity. As EIKWN QEOU and LOGOS QEOU
Christ is what we can SEE of God, is what God is SAYING to us.
(3) Well, then, what is the image of God revealed in the humanity of Jesus?
I return to the question that I raised earlier in the course of my posing
of the problems of the Christ-Hymn. I have had two nice summary discussions
of the meaning of "image of God" in creation from William Brooks and Lynn
Corey; I shall not reproduce them here, but summarize very briefly.
(a) Most suggestions are really theological and have little linkage to
anything in the text of Genesis 1:26. Patristic and much traditional
Christian speculation concentrates on the spiritual and/or intellectual
aspect of human nature, perhaps largely in association with Stoic-Platonic
syncretistic Hellenistic anthropology. Modern theological interpretation
ranges from the naturalistic (walking upright) to the intriguing suggestion
of Ron McHattie (acc. to Lynn Cooley): the finished state in which God sees
us, and toward which he is shaping us." On the other hand, if one seriously
endeavors to discern the "Mosaic" intention underlying the text of Gen
1:26, as William Brooks' summary indicates, we ought to consider ancient
Near Eastern parallels and the immediate context. What comes closest in the
Genesis text is the notion of "rule:" humanity is to exercise (responsible)
rule over the created world that is comparable to God's rule over all.
(b) We would very much like to be confident of the intent underlying the
assertion in Genesis 1:26, but what really concerns us most, I think, is
whether there is/are one or more distinctive NT conceptions of the "image
of God" as bears upon our understanding of what it means to be human as God
intended humanity to be. Where in the NT do we go for answers to this
question? Everywhere, perhaps, but we certainly learn a lot from the
Christ-Hymn, which, I would still maintain, has more to do with ethics than
with Christology, and also from John's gospel, which, more than any other,
endeavors to elucidate WHAT IT IS that is communicated to us in Christ. Of
course, it is also true that all the gospels do this. At any rate, I throw
out once more, but specifically in NT terms, the question, what is the
"image of God" that elucidates the created nature of humanity as God
intended humanity to be?
I realize that this is a heavily-loaded theological question, and as such,
perhaps inappropriate for B-Greek. I would hope that, if we DO discuss
this, we can keep the focus as closely as possible on the Greek text of the
NT and what hints we can find in that toward answers.
Does this seem worth pursuing?
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
------------------------------
From: Carl W Conrad <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 07:02:37 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Phil 2:6 OUX hARPAGMON hHGHSATO
Yesterday (6/19) Bruce Terry, commenting on a proposed interpretative
version/paraphrase of the Phil 2 X-Hymn by Gregory Jordan, posed a question
about the implications of word-order for understanding the text's meaning.
Last night I offered an all-too-cursory reply to that question, upon which
I would like now to expand.
(1) I agree altogether with Bruce that we should understand this
construction as being of the type, "understand the construction as ...,"
i.e., the type wherein the verb takes a double accusative and links an an
object with a predicate word, the verb "to be" perhaps to be understood as
implicit:
"I chose you (to be) a prophet."
(2) In Classical Greek: (a) most normally the predicate word precedes the
copula in a declarative sentence:
PROFHTHS EI SU
and also in a sentence of our type in question:
PROFHTHN SE EPOIHSA.
Bruce also asked about implications of placement of the negation: should
the OU in our phrase be construed with hARPAGMON, with hHGHSATO, or with TO
ISA EINAI QEWi? Here again I'll say that for Classical Greek the negation
normally precedes immediately what it negates, for which reason I
understand our phrase, in a version retaining the original word-order:
" ... not a-thing-to-be-grasped did-he-consider
being-on-a-par-with-God, ..."
This construction of the phrase may, of course, be suspect, if it can be
shown that Hellenistic word-order deviates from the classical norms which I
believe I have accurately represented here.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
------------------------------
From: Pat Tiller <ptiller@husc.harvard.edu>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 10:11:09 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Phil 2:6, word order/grammar
Bruce Terry suggested 4 ways of understanding the word order of Phil 2:6:
>
> In other words, is it grammatically:
> 1) did not consider robbery/booty [to be] equality with God;
> 2) did not consider equality with God [to be] robbery/booty;
> 3) considered not robbery/booty [to be] equality with God;
> 4) considered equality with God not [to be] robbery/booty?
Carl Conrad replied:
> I am out of my element to comment on Hellenistic Greek, but I can say
> that the normal pattern in classical Greek would be
> predicate-word/verb/object or predicate-word/object/verb. The
> predicate-word normally comes first.
>
> Wherefore I make it: (4) (but translate): considered
> being-on-a-par-with-God not to-be-seized.
>
I agree with Carl, but for a slightly different reason. I doubt that word
order is really the main issue here. According to Smyth, _Greek Grammar_,
"Verbs meaning *to appoint, call, choose, consider, make, name, show,* and
the like, may take a second accusative as a predicate to the direct
object" (para 1613). "The absence of the article generally distinguishes
the predicate noun from the object" (para 1614). My own observations
(unscientific and random) show that this is true also for Hellenistic
Greek. Thus arpagmon would be the predicate and to einai isa qew
(articular) would be the object.
Since ou generally precedes the word it negates (Smyth, para 2690; also,
I think, true for Hellenistic Greek), option 4 is to be preferred over
option 2.
Pat Tiller
Harvard Divinity School
------------------------------
From: Pat Tiller <ptiller@husc.harvard.edu>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 10:32:38 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Scribes
Tim Staker wrote:
> Does anyone have an idea on who "the Scribes" of the gospels
> were, _beyond_ the occupational description?
>
> Have they ever been identified with a specific group?
>
> I have often wondered if the Qumran community could have been
> "the Scribes". Does anyone think this is a possibilty?
Since "scribe" is in fact an occupational description, it is difficult to
identify the scribes of the NT in some way that goes beyond that
occupational designation. In some places, the scribes are distinguished
from the pharisees (Mark 7:1, oi farisaioi kai tines twn grammatewn
elqontes apo ierosolumwn) and in some, they are identified as belonging to
the pharisees (Mark 2:16, oi grammateis twn farisaiwn). Pharisees,
Sadducees, Essenes, Herodians, and those "who enter the New Covenant in
the land of Damascus" (CD vii 21) are designations of parties (political
and/or religious). Scribes are people who fulfill specific functions and
may belong to or work for any one of these parties.
We often think of the Qumran community as a "scribal" community because
we have so many of their writings, but this is only because their
writings happen to have been preserved, while most of the writings of
other groups perished. Probably only a few of the members of the
community could actually write. A very large proportion of the Dead Sea
Scrolls were not composed by the members of the community, and many of
those would not have been copied at Qumran either.
When we have an indication in the NT of where any particular scribes were
from, it is usually Jerusalem. Since no one (as far as I know) thinks
that Qumran was occupied by Pharisees, and few people think that their
headquarters in the first century CE was Jerusalem, and since the
community at Qumran seems to have reserved its teaching for insiders, it
is virtually impossible to suppose that any of the scribes in the NT were
from Qumran (ok, maybe one or two).
Pat Tiller
Harvard Divinity School
------------------------------
From: "Larry W. Hurtado" <hurtado@cc.umanitoba.ca>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 10:57:16 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: MORFH, EIKWN, LOGOS, THEOLOGY & ANTHROPOLOGY
On Tue, 20 Jun 1995, Carl W Conrad wrote:
(excerpted):
>
> Now it seems to me of some importance for the interpretation of this
> passage whether we view the Christ-Hymn to be in fact a Pauline composition
> or a citation from a liturgical composition of some unknown writer. If it
> IS the latter, then we cannot refer to Pauline vocabulary for the usage of
> MORFH in the hymn, and there exists a possibility that the unknown author
> may, in fact, have understood MORFH in the Genesis 1:26 sense of God's
> image.
Yes, Carl. But, precisely if Phil 2:5-11 embodies/reflects liturgical
language/usage, we should expect to find terms used with a view to their
OT connotation. And I know of no indications that "morphe" was used in
any known Greek versions of Gen 1:26.
On the "image" term in Gen 1:26, by the way, the best discussion
I know of is D. J. A. Clines, "The Image of God in Man," _Tyndale
Bulletin_ 19(1968), 53-103, a valuable discussion setting the term in its
ANE context, in which "image" has strong and specific religious
connotation in connection with cultic praxis. I. e., an "image" is the
visible/tangible representation of deity, toward which one directs cultic
devotion intended for the deity. In the aniconic religious world of the
priestly tradition behind Gen 1, to speak of the "adam" as the "image" of
the God is to make a statement with quite specific connotation. The
"adam", not some piece of stone, etc., is the "image" of the deity.
Thus, as Gen 9:1-6, murder is a particularly serious crime "because in
his own image God made humankind" (v. 6). I.e., murder is an attack upon
the "image", thus an act of religious outrage.
> (2) I would like to extend the discussion to theological implications of
> the word EIKWN QEOU, particularly as it appears in Colossians 1:15. Here
> the phrase is developed in association with Christ as the "first-born of
> cretion, in whom all things have been created." Nevertheless, inasmuch as
> the verse says that Christ is the EIKWN of God who is invisible, it is
> surely implied that Christ somehow reveals to us something about God whom
> we cannot see. So I ask: what, precisely, is it about God whom we cannot
> see that is revealed in Christ?
Carl, I suggest that Col 1:15, with the use of "eikon" *is* an allusion
to the Gen 1:26 tradition (distinguishable in this respect from Phil
2:5-7). Thus, in Col. 1:15, Christ becomes the exemplar, the new "adam"
pattern for God's intention for humans. As "firstborn of all creation",
Christ enjoys preeminence in this way.
If you are looking for NT ideas about Christ being some kind of
display of God's nature or such, Heb. 1:1-4 may serve more adequately,
esp. v. 3, with its probable allusions to WisSol 7:22--8:1.
Larry Hurtado, Religion, Univ. of Manitoba
------------------------------
From: Vincent Broman <broman@np.nosc.mil>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 95 12:50:48 PDT
Subject: Paper available on text types in Luke
I have had time in the last several months to work up a research paper
that was on the back burner for a while. The complete rough draft
is now available at ftp://archimedes.nosc.mil/pub/gnt/lukediff.txt
or by email from me if your system cannot hack FTP.
Pardon me if you see this announcement twice.
Here is the abstract. Questions, helpful comments, and corrections welcome.
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The support of internal text critical evidence for the
Alexandrian and Byzantine text types in Luke
Vincent Broman complete rough draft 20 june 1995
Copyright Vincent Broman 1995
Permission granted to make verbatim (unaltered) copies
of this article for any noncommercial purpose.
Abstract
This article evaluates, on the basis of "internal evidence of groups",
the relative weight of authority that ought to be assigned to manuscripts
of the Byzantine and Alexandrian text types when they are compared
for the purpose of reconstructing the original text of Luke.
An averaged text representing each text type is constructed
in chapters 8-10 and 16-18 of Luke from the agreement of three of the four
manuscripts 01 B L 892 and three of the four manuscripts A W Y Pi.
All 179 differences between these averaged texts are individually listed
and discussed, weighing the internal evidence for each reading being original
or secondary. The canon lectio brevior was not used.
The weight of internal evidence favored the Alexandrian text in 47 locations,
the Byzantine text in 69 locations, and in the remaining 63 locations
the evidence was balanced, indiscernible, or favorable to a third reading.
Hort's estimate of the superiority of the Alexandrians over the Byzantines
was not confirmed.
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vincent Broman, code 572 Bayside Email: broman@nosc.mil
Naval Command Control and Ocean Surveillance Center, RDT&E Div.
San Diego, CA 92152-6147, USA Phone: +1 619 553 1641
------------------------------
From: "Larry W. Hurtado" <hurtado@cc.umanitoba.ca>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 16:51:05 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: eikon
I should have mentioned the following monograph on the question of the
use/meaning of "eikon" in the NT:
Friedrich-Wilhelm Eltester, _Eikon im Neuen Testament_ (BZAW; Berlin:
Topelmann, 1958).
Eltester gives a very detailed study of the use of the term in pagan,
Jewish and NT materials.
Larry Hurtado, Religion, Univ. of Manitoba
------------------------------
From: "Larry W. Hurtado" <hurtado@cc.umanitoba.ca>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 17:03:35 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: Text types in Luke (fwd)
- ---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 16:49:08 -0500 (CDT)
From: Larry W. Hurtado <hurtado@CC.UManitoba.CA>
To: broman@nosc.mil
Cc: nt-mss@tartarus.uwa.edu.au
Subject: Re: Text types in Luke
On Tue, 20 Jun 1995, Vincent Broman wrote:
(excerpted):
> Most of the text critics I know of, including Streeter, Aland, Metzger, etc,
> etc, see text types as local phenomena. The texts in one area are generally
> similar because books tend to be copied (and mixed) locally, and any official
> control that regulates book production applies locally. Some say this
> applies only from the 4th century on, but I think the principles
> apply rather generally.
The theory of local text-types is now, I think, not nearly so widely or
firmly held in text-critical circles as in earlier decades. From E. C.
Colwell onward, text-critics have tended more & more to understand
text-types as "a process" (Colwell, _Studies in Methodology in Textual
Criticism of the NT_, pp. 53ff.). See now E. J. Epp's essay on the
papyri and evidence of early text-types in Epp & Fee, _STudies in the
Theory & Method of NT Textual Criticism_, 274-98.
In my study of P45 & W, I came to see "text-types" also in the
early period as being differing scribal practices or tendencies, not
recensional or controlled productions until the 4th cent. or later.
> I see the early roots of the Byzantine text as a local/regional text,
> somewhere between Greece and Palestine.
The Byzantine text-type, as a text-type, may the the exception, and may
be heavily the result of recensional activity, perhaps promoted from some
center. But if so this would distinguish this text-type from the earlier
ones (viz. the "western" the "neutral/Alexandrian" and the "mixed" one
represented by P45).
> If you want to propose an alternative explanation for the origin of
> the Byzantines, you need one which accounts for some basic facts:
> 1. The 4th-5th century Byzantine witnesses are substantially less
> united than the text type becomes later; they do not have a single point
> of origin.
Again, this suggests a *process* not a recension. And this means that
"local text theory" doesn't fit so well.
> 2. They share an interesting number of isolated readings with some
> early papyri and citations.
Yes, but isolated readings do not amount to a text-type. The scribal
preferences/tendencies that were more programmatically reflected in the
Byzantines were operative in earlier times too, but it appears not so
programmatically. Thus we have early *individual readings associated
particularly with the Byzantine text-type* but no evidence of *an early
Byzantine text-type*.
> 3. The quality of their common text in the 4th-5th century is comparable,
> perhaps mildly superior, to the 4th-5th century Alexandrian text type,
> as assessed by internal evidence of groups, in Luke.
I'm afraid I don't quite understand what is being asserted here so I
can't comment. I don't know right off what "internal evidence of groups
in Luke" would be.
> 4. They are not explainable as a mixture of Western and Alexandrian
> sources, plus a little editorial polish.
I don't know that any text critic has asserted this. Hort gave
explanations of scribal tendencies reflected in the Byzantine text type,
as have others subsequently, including yours truly.
Larry Hurtado, Religion, Univ. of Manitoba
------------------------------
From: Rick Strelan <R.Strelan@mailbox.uq.oz.au>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 10:11:25 +1000 (GMT+1000)
Subject: Christ-hymn
Just a thought: is it legitimate (accurate) to refer to Col 1:15-20 as a
"Christ-hymn"? It is more precisely a "Son-hymn" (1:13). In the light of
the content of the hymn, this is not a pedantic distinction.
Dr Rick Strelan
Studies in Religion
University of Queensland
Australia
------------------------------
From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" <jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 21:10:36 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: MORFH, EIKWN, LOGOS, THEOLOGY & ANTHROPOLOGY
What an ambitious header! Hope the thread lives up to it. :)
On Tue, 20 Jun 1995, Carl W Conrad wrote:
> Now it seems to me of some importance for the interpretation of this
> passage whether we view the Christ-Hymn to be in fact a Pauline composition
> or a citation from a liturgical composition of some unknown writer. If it
> IS the latter, then we cannot refer to Pauline vocabulary for the usage of
> MORFH in the hymn, and there exists a possibility that the unknown author
> may, in fact, have understood MORFH in the Genesis 1:26 sense of God's
> image. I think, however, that this is far too speculative to entertain very
> seriously. So long as it is not insisted that MORFH QEOU has ontological
> reference to God's "essential quality," I shall not find a fundamental
> problem in the usage of MORFH in both phrases, MORFH QEOU and MORFHN
> DOULOU.
It's not really too speculative. 1) There's no reason to think Paul
didn't author the hymn - he doesn't say he's citing someone else, and he
weaves it carefully into his letter, and I do think in some of his more
ecstatic moments, Paul could probably write decent poetry/songs.
2) The hymn was probably originally in Aramaic - the strophic structure
is Semitic and some of the Greek is awkward even for Paul (heuretheis
hOs, etc.). If Paul translated it from Aramaic, he may very well have
chosen a different word than the LXX chose for Gen. 1.27's eikOn/tselem.
In fact, Martin's Aramaic renders "demut" in Phil. 2.6 "morphE" - and
"demut" is in fact the word used in Gen. 1.27 for Hebrew "tselem."
3) What is usually claimed as an allusion to the LXX in Phil. 2.10, that
is, Isaiah 45.23, is actually quite general, and in some Greek
translations would be inexact (omeitai for eksomologEsetai).
> (2) I would like to extend the discussion to theological implications of
> the word EIKWN QEOU, particularly as it appears in Colossians 1:15. Here
> the phrase is developed in association with Christ as the "first-born of
> cretion, in whom all things have been created." Nevertheless, inasmuch as
> the verse says that Christ is the EIKWN of God who is invisible, it is
> surely implied that Christ somehow reveals to us something about God whom
> we cannot see. So I ask: what, precisely, is it about God whom we cannot
> see that is revealed in Christ?
I've always thought it was interesting that eikOn is used for Jesus, when
it could also refer to an idol (Rom. 1.23, Rev. 13.14, etc.). This
almost anticipates the eventual reversion to practical idolatry (the
worship of icons in the Eastern Orthodox church - sorry I don't mean to
step on EO toes).
Sometimes the eikOn is just a reference to character and attitude, and so
the image of God in Jesus just seems to be his example as well as the
followers' impulses to imitate him, which were thought of as coming from
God via his "pneuma." Thus Col. 3.10, 2 Cor. 3.18, 4.4, and probably
Rom. 8.29 (2 Cor. 3.18 and Rom. 8.29 passages both employ "-morph-"
by the way). Sometimes it is pertains to something related: the physical
characteristics associated with being like God - the ability to glow with
light, never die or rot, be beautiful, be honored - everything we associate
with the "glorified" post-Resurrection Messiah, which of course Paul claimed
to have seen, like most of the NT writers. The focus is especially on the
ability to survive death and never die again, like Jesus did - one usual
attribute of deity in antiquity was immortality. Thus we have 1 Cor. 15.49
(which has Jesus as 2nd Adam), Phil. 3.21, etc.
> If it is, then this is also a primary assertion of the prologue of John's
> gospel, especially of 1:18: QEON OUDEIS hEWRAKEN PWPOTE; MONOGENHS QEOS hO
> WN EIS TON KOLPON TOU PATROS EKEINOS EXHGHSATO. The LOGOS is the instrument
> of God's communication/revelation to humanity. As EIKWN QEOU and LOGOS QEOU
> Christ is what we can SEE of God, is what God is SAYING to us.
In one place Philo called his Logos "eikOn," with various Platonist baggage.
In Col. 1.15 I would cast my vote in favor of "eikOn" meaning directly
the Messiah as creator. The context favors creation (1.16-20) - the
author specifically mentions creation and cosmos, and is trying to show
the audience that the Messiah is indispensable and unavoidable - the
source and goal of all existence.
The Messianic reading of Gen. 1:26-27 was to read Hebrew "betsalmenu
vekidemutenu" in an instrumental sense: the human race is made by the
Image, the personified Messiah, and in his likeness, not God's directly.
Greg Jordan
jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu
------------------------------
End of b-greek-digest V1 #759
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