From: Ben Crick (ben.crick@argonet.co.uk)
Date: Tue Dec 02 1997 - 17:49:22 EST
On Tue 2 Dec 97 (04:58:13 +1000), r.strelan@mailbox.uq.edu.au wrote:
> I read recently a very short article by Rendel Harris in which he
> argues that the subject of the verb EKHRUXEN has been inadvertently
> omitted from 1 Pet 3:19 but understandably so, and that the text should
> read EN hWi KAI ENWC TOIS EN FULAKHi... [retranscribed for clarity]
> I trust you can see his point. An error in copying saw the omission of
> the 'second' ENW[C]. Rendel Harris thinks the Enoch tradition (see 1
> Enoch 12) supports his claim and, besides, his reading removes some of
> the exegetical difficulties such as treating EN hWi as a relative to
> the previous PNEUMATI - rather, it introduces, awkwardly, a new
> sentence as in 1 Pet 4:4.
Hullo Rick!
Well, well! Could you give us the Rendell Harris reference, please?
Certainly it looks like a bit of haplography (ENWX confused with EN hWi
and so inadvertently omitted). A scribe taking down oral dictation could
easily fall into such a trap.
However one regards the pseudepigraphical Enoch, it certainly seems to
cut the ground under a line of interpretation which makes the Spirit of
Jesus go down to She'ol on the day after Good Friday (Holy Saturday) and
give the imprisoned souls there who died in the Flood a "second chance"
to repent and get saved. I was never happy with that; I prefer good old
Archbishop Robert Leighton of Glasgow's interpretation. He really is one of
the "old boys" antedating "Higher Criticism". One to put alongside Archbishop
Richard Chenevix Trench of Dublin. O for archbishops like that nowadays!
But here I go leaving textual matters and straying into hermeneutics. 8-/
Enoch isn't actually named in 1 or 2 Peter; only in Jude verse 14.
So it's back to the relationship between the canonical 1 and 2 Peter,
the canonical Jude, and the uncanonical 1 Enoch.... Ho hum....
Does Harris argue against himself before arriving at his conclusion; or
does he just fly it as a kite for others to shoot down?
-- Revd Ben Crick, BA CF <ben.crick@argonet.co.uk> 232 Canterbury Road, Birchington, Kent, CT7 9TD (UK) http://www.cnetwork.co.uk/crick.htm
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