From: Jim West (jwest@highland.net)
Date: Mon Feb 09 1998 - 14:00:37 EST
At 01:46 PM 2/9/98 -0500, you wrote:
> I have a question regarding the use of KINOUMEQA -- it is listed as
>passive in many places (BAG, for example, Balz & Schneider's Exegetical
>Dictionary, for another). I know it stems from Aratus, Phaenomena 5,
>according to Nestle-Aland margin. How do I determine whether this is
>passive or middle voice? If passive, then we are being moved, if middle,
>we are moving (for) ourselves. The question comes up in the context of
>studying Calvin's Institutes, i.e., Calvin would celebrate the notion of
>God's moving us, as do I. I wonder, however, what the language of this
>particular passage represents, and while I continue to study for myself
>(middle) <grin>, I wonder if I could evoke some contemplative response from
>the great b-greek sages (all of you, of course, being included in this
>address).
>---
>Michael Phillips
>mphilli3@indy.tdsnet.com
I think the answer to your questione lies in the popular Greek philosophy
which lies behind this quotation. Such philosophers would suggest that god
moves and the folk moved are the passive recipients of that external cause.
Thus, the verb must be understood as a passive.
See Balch, D.L.- "The Areopagus Speech: An Appeal to the Stoic Historian
Posidonius against Later Stoics and the Epicureans" in <ul>Greeks, Romans
and Christians.</ul>
Jim
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
Adjunct Professor of Bible
Quartz Hill School of Theology
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