From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed Jan 03 2001 - 07:14:15 EST
At 5:33 AM +0000 1/3/01, Mark Wilson wrote:
>The following statement appears in the same article by Dr. Wallace that I
>referenced
>in my previous post:
>
>------
>Should the genitive CRISTOU be regarded as objective or subjective?
>Virtually all modern English translations regard it as an objective
>genitive, both in Rom 3.22 and the other Pauline texts: "faith in Jesus
>Christ." This is so in spite of an increasing number of scholars who, in the
>past few decades, have argued for a subjective genitive— "the faithfulness
>of Jesus Christ."
>------
>
>Rom. 3:22a
>
>DIKAIOSUNH DE QEOU DIA PISTEWS IHSOU CRISTOU
>
>It seems to me that the Greeks had a suffix that converted, for example, a
>noun (faith)
>into an abstract noun (faithfulness), just as in this very verse DIKAIOS
>has the abstract suffix SUNH to make righteous "righteousness."
>
>What then is the justification for taking PISTEWS IHSOU CRISTOU as either:
>
>the faithfulness (abstract quality) of Jesus Christ?
>
>
>In other words, should not the subjective genitive here be:
>
>the faith of Jesus Christ?
I have noted Iver Larsen's reference to Douglas Moo's Commentary on Romans
and argument that IHSOU CRISTOU here must be objective genitive. I don't
suppose that the question will be settled authoritatively by Douglas Moo,
because I think that there are some pretty good arguments for both sides of
the question, whether it is subjective or objective genitive, and we have
had several discussions of this topic heretofore (i.e. prior to this first
year of the new millennium) on B-Greek.
But in response to Mark's original question, it needs to be remembered: (a)
that the distinction between "subjective" and "objective" genitive isn't in
Greek grammar but in the interpreter of an expression in the Greek that is
in itself not indicative of such a distinction. There's no way to determine
whether PISTEWS IHSOU CRISTOU in Rom 3:22a should be understood as
"faith(fulness) of Jesus Christ" or "faith directed to Jesus Christ"
without a much broader investigation of the context and Pauline usage--and
in fact, investigators have conducted such investigations and have come out
on both sides of the fence. Here again, as in several such problematic
questions, one must read the arguments posed by both groups and reach one's
own conclusion.
--
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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