From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Jan 22 1998 - 06:33:50 EST
At 6:30 PM -0600 1/21/98, Revcraigh wrote:
>Dear b-greekers,
>
>In a message dated 1/14/98 10:16:04 PM, Vernon wrote:
>
>>I have always thought the gift was Eternal life... but I am presently reading
>a
>>book were the author states that The Gift of Eph.2:9 is Faith. Please let me
>know
>>what you think?
>
>The Greek for Eph 2:8-10 is:
>
>8 THi GAR XARITI ESTE SESWiSMENOI DIA PISTEWS: KAI TOUTO OUK EC hUMWN, QEOU TO
>DWRON 9 OUK EX ERGWN, hINA MH TIS KAUXHSHTAI 10 AUTOU GAR ESMEN POIHMA,
>KTISQENTES EN XRISTWi IHSOU EIP ERGOIS AGAQOIS hOIS PROHTOIMASEN hO QEOS hINA
>EN AUTOIS PERIPATHSWMEN.
>
>The issue, I think revolves around the TOUTO of v. 8 "and this not from
>yourselves, it is the gift of God" (NIV). The question being, "This what?"
>TOUTO is a nom. sing. neut. dem. pronoun calling for a sing. neut. noun as
>referent. That referent *should* be TO DWRON "the (specific and previously
>mentioned) gift" which Paul would be saying is QEOU: a gift "of God," since
>this is the nearest sing. neut. noun. Of this "gift of God", Paul would then
>seem to be saying that it is OUK EC hUMWN "not of yourselves."
>
>I say "should be", "would be", and "would then seem to be saying" because I
>don't know of any translation that takes TOUTO with QEOU TO DWRON and
>translate it "this gift of God is not of yourselves" probably because that
>would be a self-evident (and therefore redundant) statement (and I'm not even
>sure that it is grammatically possible here, given the distance between TOUTO
>and TO DWRON).
I've always thought this TOUTO referred back to the entire preceding clause
resumptively: the FACT of the addressees having been saved by grace through
faith. A neuter singular is the normal element to refer to a conception
expressed in a larger phrase or clause, and one often enough sees the
neuter relative pronoun hO\ used that way. If that's right, the other
question is whether TOUTO is really nominative with ESTI implicit and OUK
EX hUMWN as the predicate, or alternatively TOUTO might be accusative and
adverbial: "and for that matter ... ," "and as to that ..." Either way, the
TOUTO would refer backwards to the entire clause; this, I think, is better
than trying to link the neuter plural demonstrative to some single noun of
another gender or to the DWRON that follows EX hUMWN.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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