From: Edward Hobbs (EHOBBS@wellesley.edu)
Date: Thu Jan 08 1998 - 16:11:45 EST
Colleagues:
Some time prior to the message (by me) quoted by Vincent Broman, on the
so-called "causal use of EIS", this little exchange occurred.
Carlton Winbery wrote:
>> ... "causal eis" is very convenient for a Baptist.
[Edward Hobbs responded:]
Ralph Marcus (a Jew, not a Methodist!), a Greek scholar of one
hundred times the knowledge and skill of Mantey, blasted Mantey out of the
water, twice, each time Mantey claimed to have found examples in the papyri
and other Hellenistic literature of "causal eis". Mantey couldn't read
the papyri with any intelligence, and he absolutely couldn't read
Hellenistic literature at all, which he proved frequently IN PERSON at
meetings of the CSBL, where he always stumbled and hemmed and hawed when a
text he hadn't seen a month in advance was raised for discussion.
He wrote me a nasty, handwritten letter of great length, attacking
me for my rejection of all of his examples; whereupon Marcus wrote his
first article, then his second when Mantey persisted.
Carlton Winbery then wrote:
>Seriously, I still advocate the reading of an old favorite The Expositor's
>Greek Testament by W.R. Nicoll at Acts 2:38. I agree with him that this is
>the preposition with the accusative used, as Nicoll puts it, to signify
>aim. The early Christians would connect the forgiveness of sins with the
>death and resurrection of Christ signified in baptism. This is in
>disagreement with what Brooks and I put in the Syntax book, but I have had
>occasion to read much further on this since then.
And Carlton later added:
> ....... I used to argue for the causal EIS + acc. but
>going back and reading some of the old classic commentaries plus the fact
>that only those with a theological need for it were pointing to it led me
>to study the wider spectrum of the Greek world. The fact that it can not
>be demonstrated elsewhere is strong evidence against it.
This imaginary use of EIS has come up from time to time; but no Greek
grammarian other than Mantey tried to make a case for it.
Edward Hobbs
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