From: Paul F. Evans (evans@esn.net)
Date: Sat Dec 20 1997 - 21:39:26 EST
Jeffery,
Could it not be that to make sense of translating the genitive EI hUIOS EI
TOU QEOU requires the definite article in English. I don't think that we
need to resort to hermeneutics in order to discover the reason for its
presence in the English. How the hUIOS in the context is to be understood
is a different matter. My money is on the notion that the noun in a
genitive construction can still have specificity in spite of the absence of
the article, as Fee suggests is true in many construction where Paul uses
PNEUMA. I guess I don't buy into the notion that the absence of the article
automatically means that the noun is "unqualified." However, the experts on
the list will have to adjudicate that!
Paul F. Evans
Pastor
Thunder Swamp Pentecostal Holiness Church
MT. Olive
E-mail: evans@esn.net
Web-page: http://ww2.esn.net/~evans
----------
> From: Jeffrey Gibson <jgibson@acfsysv.roosevelt.edu>
> To: Jonathan Robie <jonathan@texcel.no>
> Cc: b-greek@virginia.edu
> Subject: Re: Matt 4:3 If you are *the* son
> Date: Saturday, December 20, 1997 7:00 PM
>
>
>
> On Sat, 20 Dec 1997, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>
> > Matt 4:3 EI hUIOS EI TOU QEOU
> >
> > I am still struggling with the omission of the article. To me, it seems
> > that this same clause could be translated "if you are a son" in a
different
> > context, e.g. if it occurred in a passage that discusses our status as
> > children of God. Is it true that the only reason this is "the" son is
that
> > Satan seems to be talking about one definite son of God, one who would
be
> > empowered to change stones into bread, etc.? Or is there something else
> > that should tip me off?
> >
> Jonathan,
>
> I do not think that your question can be properly answered without
> evaluating (1) what the Devil is actually "up to" in the story that
> contextualizes Matt. 4:3 (the wilderness temptation story), and (2)
> whether the presupposition of the story is that Jesus possesses and
> is being prompted to use "miraculous power". I am prepared to go
> into this, but I hesitate because I think to do so would probably
> take us beyond the scope of B-Greek.
>
> But you should take note that there is no "the" in the Greek text. That
it
> keeps getting inserted in translations and by commentators seems to be
> based not so much a grammatical consideration as it is on presuupositions
> of what the temptations story is all about.
>
> In any case, one thing, that needs to be considered here in explaining
why
> the title hUIOS TOU QEOU in Matt. 4:3 (and in Matt. 4:6) is anarthrous is
> the possibility that there is an intention on the part of Matthew (and
> Luke, and indeed the original author of the Wilderness temptations story)
> to point out the equivalence of Jesus to Israel and *not*, as many
> commentators argue or assume, to any known or expected messianic figure.
> (Note how the wilderness temptation story is set up to recall the
> "testing" of God's Son, Israel, as this was recounted in Deut. 6-8, and
> the fact that Jesus responds to all of the Devil's promptings in the
story
> with quotations from Deut. 6-8 which delineate what in Deuteronomy Israel
> owed its God).
>
> Jeffrey Gibson
> jgibson@acfsysv.roosevelt.edu
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