From: CEP7@aol.com
Date: Thu Dec 30 1999 - 23:54:12 EST
In a message dated 12/30/1999 6:27:40 PM, cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu writes:
<< I am preparing a student notebook which includes an exegesis of 1 Cor
>15:1-5. In studying 1 Cor 15:2 I have some exegetically challenging
>questions. Can you help?
An interesting challenge indeed, George. I offer only some tentative
suggestions that are based on a view that Paul, although he can write with
rhetorical precision and force when he wants to, often writes in spasms and
sequences of afterthoughts. Take this for no more than a tentative
suggestion.
>The text reads:
>
>EUAGGELION DI' hOU KAI SWZESQE TINI LOGW EUHGGELISAMHN UMIN, EI KATEXETE,
>EKTOS EI MH EIKH EPISTEUSATE.
(expanded to include antecedent of hOU and a couple types corrected)
>
>My questions are these:
>
>1. What is the significance of EI KATEXETE ?
I think this is a sort of parenthetical addition; it is in the present
tense just as is SWZESQE: "you are bringing about your salvation through
it, assuming that you hold fast to it ..."
>2. Why the verb tense change between KATEXETE and EPISTEUSATE ?
I think this is still a second parenthetical addition, looking back at the
inception of faith on the part of the Corinthians. I'd understand it as
"and of course you bring about your salvation through it, assuming you hold
fast to it, ... unless perchance you really did believe for naught."
>3. I understand the pleonasm of EKTOS EI MH but I am surprised that MH
>rather than OU is used with an indicative verb. Any ideas why?
Two thoughts: (a) it's a counter-factual protasis, which would take a MH
and aorist subjunctive, but would be hard to carry over into English here:
"excluding--unless you really had come to faith in vain ..." or (b) it's a
cross (in very colloquial writing) between a counter-factual condition and
a deep wish that what Paul perceives to be true is not REALLY true:
"excluding--unless--but it's not true, is it, that you believed in vain?"
That might require a different punctuation, but it strikes me as a
possibility in what seems to me a very colloquial sort of sequence.
>4. Do you take EKTOS EI MH as a negated 1CC ?
Sorry, I'm not used to the terminology. If it's a condition, it seems to me
it must be counter-factual.
>5. What is the structural relationship between EI KATEXETE and EKTOS EI MH
>EPISTEUSATE
Personally I don't think that there IS a structural relationship between
these two phrases; I think rather that they are successive reactions to the
proposition that Paul is loath to take seriously, that the Corinthians
really do NOT believe in the resurrection of Christ. I think he is
pondering what it must mean if they really DON'T believe in it when it is
an essential element of the gospel. So he says: It's what you're being
saved/getting saved by, after all--assuming you do still hold fast to
it--but is it really possible that you believed for nothing? I just can't
believe it!" (paraphrase of sense I understand here). >>
I'm really going to address questions 3, 4, and 5. First. I don't think EKTOS
EI MH EPISTEUSATE is counterfactual/2nd class condition because this would
require a past tense (and usually AN) in the apodosis, and both KATEXETE and
SWZESQE are present tense forms. Secondly, I think EKTOS EI MH EPISTEUSATE is
qualifying EI KATEXETE (a grounds/inference or equivalence relationship
between protasis and apodosis), so there is a structural relationship between
the two clauses, even though Paul may be loathe to take them seriously.
Charles Powell
DTS
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