From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Aug 21 2000 - 07:38:56 EDT
At 11:02 PM +0000 8/20/00, Jon D. Boyd wrote:
>I am interested in what anyone would have to say on 2 Cor. 3:6 in
>relation to monadic expressions. Daniel Wallace says in reference to
>monadic nouns that "A one-of-a-kind noun does not, of course, require
>the article to be definite (e.g., 'sun,' 'earth,' devil,' etc.)" (p. 248
>of "Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics"). My question is this: Should
>KAINHS DIAQHKHS be considered a monadic expression? I am not interested
>in the theology of the verse but would simply like some help on how to
>figure out if it is monadic or not.
2 Cor 3:6 reads: hOS hIKANWSEN hHMAS DIAKONOUS KAINHS DIAQHKHS, OU
GRAMMATOS ALLA PNEUMATOS: TO GAR GRAMMA APOKTENNEI, TO DE PNEUMA ZWiOPOIEI.
I'm not going to cite them all, but I note from a quick AcCordance search
that KAINH DIAQHKH usually DOES have the article hH. I would think that the
phrasing of 2 Cor 3:6 is sufficiently different that we're not talking here
about THE New Covenant but about A NEW covenant (and of course, the
phrasing itself derives ultimately from Jer 31). The spotlight in this
phrasing is really upon KAINHS, which is then explained by OU GRAMMATOS
ALLA PNEUMATOS. So I think that in this instance DIAQHKH is not a monadic
noun and KAINH, even if one wants to understand it as attributive to
DIAQHKH, really has a predicative force: " ... has certified us as servants
of a covenant that is brand-new, (a covenant) not of letter but of spirit
..." Covenants, the phrasing suggests, are 'a dime a dozen' but this is a
covenant of unprecedented nature. So I really don't think we have a monadic
noun here.
--
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
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
---
B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [jwrobie@mindspring.com]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:36:34 EDT