From: Mark Wilson (emory2oo2@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Sep 25 2000 - 19:16:27 EDT
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Romans 5:12b
KAI hOUTWS EIS PANTAS ANQRWPOUS
hO QANATOS DIHLQEN, EF hWi PANTES hHMARTON
To me, verse 12 implies death resulted EF hWi PANTES hAMARTON. If EF hWi
does mean "because all sinned," there appears to be some inconsistency, at
least on the surface level, from what immediately follows.
It seems inescapable to conclude that Paul sees the
"cause" of death in the subsequent verses as TWi TOU hENOS PARAPTWMATI.
As these two subsequent statements imply:
15b: EI GAR TWi TOU hENOS PARAPTWMATI hOI POLLOI APEQANON
17a: EI GAR TWi TOU hENOS PARAPTWMATI hO QANATOS EBASILEUSEN
Most commentaries I have run across say that TOU hENOS is referring
to Adam, and well it might. What seems odd to me is verse 12 relates death
to "all sinned" while the following verses relate death to TOU hENOS. "The
one" what? Person (Adam), or event (all sinned).
Could this TOU hENOS be referring back to PANTES hHMARTON in some
collective sense? I would suppose then that
TWi PARAPTWMATI and TOU hENOS would be epexegetical.
It seems to me that the Aorist tense hHMARTON is looking at this sin (of
PANTES) almost in a collective sense.
And somewhat awkwardly, we would have 15b read:
"For, if by the trespass, namely, the aforementioned one, the many died."
(Here, the aforementioned one would be the collective sin of all.)
If this is grammatically acceptable, then it seems to me that there remains
a consistency throughout this famous passage. Namely, TOU hENOS
is not referring to a person (Adam), but to a collective event (PANTES
hHMARTON).
I have no idea what this "collective event" would look like, but I have read
numerous commentaries that seem to imply some "solidarity" here. I believe I
have even read something close to "we all sinned with Adam." I suppose this
obtuse clarification would be that collective event.
By the way, this is ONLY looking at "death" in this passage. This is not
attempting to imply anything about the "judgment" or "condemnation."
However, I would note that in connection with these two, DIA or EX hENOS
seem to be used, and in verse 19, rather than simply saying
TOU hENOS, Paul adds ANQRWPOU.
Any comments beyond grammatical/syntactical considerations, please
do so OFFLIST.
Thank you,
Mark Wilson
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