From: Jonathan Robie (jonathan@texcel.no)
Date: Sun Jan 11 1998 - 16:10:16 EST
At 09:45 PM 1/11/98 +0800, Steven Cox wrote:
> The question is really fixed on whether APEIQHSASIN
> is solely related to PNEUMASIN, or whether any time
> relation can be made with EKHRUXEN?
>
> ie. yes we know that APEIQHSASIN POTE OTE.. references
> the days of Noah, but the book of Enoch indicates that the
> actual chaining of Semjaza and the other 200 bad angels
> was before Noah's birth, not in Noah's days at all, so the
> question arises - is this the same naughtiness that got
> them locked up in the first place or is it their reaction
> to Christ's preaching - and all 3 verbs POREUQEIS EKHRUXEN
> APEIQHSASIN are POTE OTE Noah's day.
I can't get it to read that way. POREUQEIS EKHRUXEN refers to Jesus going
to the captives and preaching to them, both verbs occuring at the same
time. APEIQHSASIN refers to an earlier time, POTE hOTE Noah was building
the ark.
By the way, can this be interpreted as "once, when Noah was..."? I'm
comparing this to Colossians 3:7, where the same word combination occurs,
but is punctuated differently.
I'm reading it as though KATASKEUAZOMENHS is a genitive absolute "while he
was building the ark", and I assume that the main verb is APEXEDECETO.
Frankly, as I write this and stare at that verse, I'm tempted to put a
comma between POTE and hOTE, as Paul suggests, but for a different reason:
not all of these people had disobeyed in the time of Noah, they had
disobeyed at various times. I think that the discussion of Noah and the ark
may be a separate thought, related to saving through baptism.
Does that seem grammatically possible? I hope I'm not reading too much into
this...
As to the notion that Jesus preached to the dead in Hades, which is echoed
in some of our creeds, there may also be an allusion to this in Eph 4:9,
and it is also quite possible that this event was what prompted the dead to
come to life as recorded in Mt 27:52. I'm just speculating here...
Jonathan
jonathan@texcel.no
Texcel Research
http://www.texcel.no
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