From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sat Dec 12 1998 - 07:43:01 EST
At 4:43 PM -0600 12/11/98, Tom Geiger wrote:
>Greetings List Members,
>
>This is my first post to this list and, I trust, that my question is
>not to elementary for the list.
Welcome then, and don't let it be your last!
>I am currently in a discussion regarding Romans 1:4. The discussion
>is not only on the meaning of the verse but regarding one of the
>prepositions used in the verse in the Greek.
>
>Romans 1:4 And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to
>the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:
>
>The question is in regard to "by the resurrection". My initial point
>was that the word by was EK in the Greek, not DIA. My point being
>that the resurrection from the dead was not the channel by which Jesus
>was determined to be the Son of God (which would be the case if DIA
>was used). The person I am speaking indicated that I was still in
>error as the preposition was not EK but EX.
To clear up that little point, EK and EX are variant forms of the same
preposition, EK used before a word beginning with a consonant, EX before a
word beginning with a vowel, as here EX ANASTASEWS; this is strictly a
matter of euphonics, like the alternation between OU (used before a word
beginning with a consonant), OUK (used before a word beginning with a
smooth vowel) and OUC (used before a word beginnng with an aspirated vowel).
>I must admit I do not have a large amount of resources to check this.
>I was wondering if anyone could assist me with this and also comment
>on my comment regarding DIA versus EK (or EX as the case may be).
First let's cite the whole sequence, because I personally think that the
reason EX is used here with ANASTASEWS NEKRON is to underscore the parallel
with EK SPERMATOS DAUID in the preceding verse; indeed the structure of the
two genitive participial phrases seems quite deliberately formulated so
that each major element in the first phrase has its analogue in the second:
1:3 PERI TOU hUIOU AUTOU
TOU GENOMENOU EK SPERMATOS DAUID KATA SARKA
1:4 TOU hORISQENTOS hUIOU QEOU EN DUNAMEI KATA PNEUMA hAGIOSUNHS EX
ANASTASEWS NEKRWN, ...
I don't know whether this is the prevalent view of this passage, but
personally I've always thought that it must be a pre-Pauline confessional
formula that is here presented as a quick summation of the essential
theological affirmations about Jesus made by believers.
In the first place, I rather doubt that the meaning would be significantly
changed if the text were DI' ANASTASIN NEKRWN rather than EX ANASTASEWS
NEKRWN, since the adverbial phrase clarify the participial phrase TOU
hORISQENTOS ... EN DUNAMEI--so that I think that "as a consequence of
resurrection of the dead" does not mean anything essentially different from
"owing to resurrection from the dead"--and for that reason I think the
translation "by resurrection from the dead" is an appropriate translation
of EX ANASTASEWS NEKRWN, even if it seems less 'literal.'
HOWEVER, as regards your concern that "the resurrection from the dead was
not the channel by which Jesus was determined to be the Son of God," your
problem may be more with the sense of hORISQENTOS. What the text says, I
think, is not that Jesus Christ BECAME Son of God as a result of
resurrection--after all, he is already indicated as such in the opening
phase of verse 3 as TOU hUIOU AUTOU; moreover, I would see the two
participial phrases as strictly parallel assertions being made about "his
Son": (1) born in the natural way through biological descent from David,
and (2) DESIGNATED--marked, set off distinctly--as Son of God in/with power
= fully empowered in the realm of efficacy of the Holy Spirit as a result
of resurrection from the dead.
There's a lot more exegesis that could be done here, and I would hope that
discussion can remain focused on what this text actually does affirm rather
than on what it fails to say that one might suppose it ought to have
included. By that I mean to say simply that the fact that the text in 1:3
says nothing about a virgin birth need not be understood to mean this verse
stands in contradiction to a notion of virgin birth; it makes only one
affirmation, one that is,in fact, consistent with what the Matthaean and
Lucan birth narratives both claim: that Jesus is naturally descended from
the lineage of David (and so is entitled even by virtue of that to claim
the title of Messiah = King of Israel--and I would point to Raymond Brown's
discussion of those birth narratives and his assertion that even adoption
by a father of a child he has snot fathered entitles the child to claim the
father's patrimony). But 1:3 doesn't say anything more than that by birth
Jesus is Son of God through descent from David--and here it ought to be
remembered that in Jewish tradition "Son of God" is a royal epithet, the
usage of which is understood in tradition as warranted by the prophecy of
Nathan in 2 Sam 7: the man born king through descent from David is adopted
as God's Son. I say all that by way of background without making any
theological assertions about whether or not Rom 1:3 implicitly rejects a
notion of Jesus' supernatural birth. It doesn't mention it at all and I
think nothing should be inferred from what it doesn't mention. Clearly
enough the (confessional) proposition is meant to contrast two modes of
Jesus' being Son of God: (1) he was Son of God already by birth from
David's lineage in ordinary historical terms (KATA SARKA), and (2) he was
designated as fully-empowered Son of God as a consequence of the
resurrection, and this designation is something that has taken place
OUTSIDE of the ordinary historical sequence (KATA PNEUMA hAGIOSUNHS).
Whether or not Paul wrote this credal formula himself or adopted it from
other early Christians does not really matter, I think, so far as
consistency with Paul's views; I'm thinking particularly of his insistence
upon the death and resurrection as determinative of believers' relationship
with God through Christ and his occasionally underscored relativization of
who Jesus was and what he did prior to his death and resurrection.
I hope this may help. Admittedly it is only one interpretation and there
may well be several different ones, but I would hope we can keep the focus
on this particular passage and what it DOES say (rather than worry about
what it DOESN'T say). It does affirm that by virtue of the resurrection
Jesus was fully empowered as Son of God; it doesn't say that only by virtue
of the resurrection did Jesus BECOME the Son of God.
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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