From: David L. Moore (dvdmoore@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Wed Jun 26 1996 - 15:30:15 EDT
Randy Leedy wrote:
>[In Php. 2:6] it
> would be possible to supply two elliptical elements in the sentence;
> an EINAI and an AUTON. If these elements were explicit, the passage
> would read
>
> OUK [EINAI] hARPAGMON hHGHSATO TO [AUTON] EINAI ISA QEWi. (Placement
> of elliptical EINAI is awkward, and the seeming lack of a better
> position suggests that supplying the word simply does not work in
> Greek. Still, a copula is involved logically as part of the
> object/predicate double accusative)
>
> In English: "He did not consider [his] being equal to God [to be]
> something to grasp"
>
> In this reading, the EXPLICIT infinitive stands as the head of a noun
> clause that, in turn, functions as the "subject" part of the double
> accusative, and hence is articular, while hARPAGMON, as the
> predicate, is anarthrous. I don't think Al Kidd was taking EINAI this
> way; As I read him, he was trying to make it the copula between ISA
> and hARPAGMON.
>
> The real puzzle about this sentence to me is the neuter plural
> inflection of ISA. The only thing I can figure is that it provides a
> focus away from personal equality (which Jesus never relinquished) to
> equality in accidentals such as the pleasures and glories of heaven.
> But some extra-biblical references in BAGD suggest that I may be
> straining after something, and that this construction may simply be
> an idiom. If anyone can authoritatively address this point, I'd love
> to see it.
Lightfoot, in his commentary on Pilippians (ad loc.) mentions an unflattering
quote from the LXX about man, BROTOS DE GENNHTOS GUNAIKOS ISA ONWi ERHMITHi. The
substantives and even the auxilary participle are singular, but ISA is neuter plural.
Lightfoot says, regarding this usage, "Between the two expressions ISOS EINAI and ISA
IENAI no other distinction can be drawn, except that the former refers rather to the
*person*, the latter to the *attributes*." There is also the possiblility that this
expression conveys the idea of the one representing the many. (Cf. v. 5.)
-- David L. Moore Director Miami, Florida, USA Department of Education dvdmoore@ix.netcom.com Southeastern Spanish District http://www.netcom.com/~dvdmoore of the Assemblies of God
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:37:46 EDT