From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Sep 04 2000 - 17:41:47 EDT
At 12:03 PM -0400 9/4/00, Theodore H Mann wrote:
>I recently read that hUPAKOH PISTEWS, in Romans 1:5, has been viewed as
>(1) an objective genitive, (2) a subjective genitive, (3) an attributive
>genitive, or (4) as a genitive of apposition. Any thoughts as to which
>it might be?
I've said this before, but some don't take it very seriously: these
distinctions reflect English or other target language usage, not categories
in which Greek speakers/authors understood the relationship of a genitive
with another noun.
The text (which, as usual, I would urge posters, please, to present along
with their questions--we can go to a text and look it up, but we wouldn't
have to if we were given it with the question): ... IHSOU CRISTOU TOU
KURIOUS hHMWN, (5) DI' hOU ELABOMEN CARIN KAI APOSTOLHN EIS hUPAKOHN
PISTEWS EN PASIN TOIS EQNESIN hUPER TOU ONOMATOS AUTOU, ...
Now consider the alternatives suggested:
(1) objective genitive: "for obedience to faith" -- but is faith a person
to whom one offers obedience? hardly.
(2) subjective genitive: "faith's obedience" -- but is faith a person who
can obey?
(3) attributive genitive: "obedience of faith" = "obedience associated
with/dependent upon faith" = "faithful obedience" -- that's what strikes me
as most appropriate in this instance.
(4) genitive of apposition: "obedience, i.e. faith" -- this doesn't make a
lot of sense to me.
My own sense of the intended meaning here is that when Paul successfully
discharges his mission as an apostle he brings new converts into a
condition that is not merely faith in God through Christ, but efficacious
faith, which is to say, obedience to God's will as understood in Christ.
You may say this is an interpretation, and so it is, but I think it is
consistent both with Pauline usage and with Paul's expressed views on
behavior as the consequence of newly-gained faith in God through Christ;
that is to say, faith is not an abstract attitude or cognitive stance but a
disposition to act in obedience to God's will as understood through Christ.
--
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/
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