From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sat Sep 09 2000 - 14:24:03 EDT
At 4:39 PM +0000 9/9/00, Mark Wilson wrote:
>Acts 6:7-
>> >KAI O LOGOS TOU QEOU HUXANEN KAI EPLHQUNETO hO ARIQMOS TWN MAQHTWN EN
>> >IEROUSALHM SFODRA POLUS TE OCLOS TWN hIEREWN hUPHKOUON THi PISTEI
>
>To which Carl wrote:
>
>>This IS a little bit bizarre, if one thinks about it a bit. hH PISTIS here
>>DOES seem to take on (informally?) a sort of personification; it is not so
>>much, I think, a body of abstract doctrine as it is a "Torah" that
>>addresses persons individually and in the heart and draws forth from them a
>>response of submission more than of intellectual assent.
>
>And to which I would suggest:
>
>Looks like Paul was not the only NT writer who had a fondness for
>personifying concepts. How many in Romans alone does Paul personify? (Law,
>Sin, Death, Faith...)
>
>I might not even consider this personification of faith "a little bit
>bizarre." This personification seems more than natural to me. Wouldn't
>surprise me if Luke picked up this technique from his teacher, Paul.
No doubt about it: Paul does personify hO NOMOS, hH hAMARTIA, hO QANATOS,
the later two as sort of demonic forces, the Law particularly when he
develops the analogy of the PAIDAGWGOS. Nevertheless I DO consider "The
Faith" to be rather bizarre as a personification in ancient Greek, however
normal and even well-accepted it may be in an English where we can speak of
"living and dying for the Faith" or "Faith of our Fathers ... we will be
true to THEE ..." (with all that patriarchal baggage!). A question that
needs to be pondered seriously here, moreover, is the extent to which an
author is consciously and deliberately using a metaphor or simile as
opposed to using a metaphor that has ceased to carry metaphorical
significance and has 'naturalized' itself into the language. I'm thinking
of the way Epicurus and Lucretius used the word "seed" (Grk SPERMA, Lat
SEMEN) for the wholly material and non-living ATOM--it's never altogether
clear whether the biological implications of the word "seed" are wholly
subdued. I still think hUPAKOUEIN THi PISTEI is a bizarre expression. And
I'm not really so sure that it does remain a pure personification rather
than an abstract noun; nevertheless it is used in dative constructions that
are appropriate for a person--and that's got to apply as well, I guess, to
hUPAKOH PISTEWS. So I'll recant my earlier insistence that PISTEWS in that
phrase ought not to be considered an "objective genitive."
Louw & Nida index these instances of this usage in the GNT:
--------------
31.104 PISTIS, EWS f: (semantic derivative of PISTIS 'to be a believer,
Christian faith,' 31.102) the content of what Christians believe - 'the
faith, beliefs, doctrine.' EPAGWNIZESQAI THi hAPAX PARADOQEISHi TOIS
hAGIOIS PISTEI 'fight on for the faith which once and for all God has given
to his people' Jd 3; hO DIWKWN hHMAAS POTE NUN EUAGGELIZETAI THN PISTIN hHN
POTE EPORQEI 'the man who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith
he once tried to destroy' Ga 1:23. It is also possible to interpret PISTIS
in Jd 3 and Ga 1:23 as the act of believing and placing confidence in Jesus
Christ (see 31.102).
---------------
--
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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