From: Iver Larsen (alice-iver_larsen@wycliffe.org)
Date: Thu Jan 04 2001 - 03:30:28 EST
>
> 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?
>
>
> Thank you,
>
> Mark Wilson
Let me add a comment from general linguistics to your various questions. Carl
has already explained the broad semantic range of PISTIS which includes the
English faithfulness. My earlier comment was to say there are still good reasons
to suggest that the genitive is objective and that there is no consensus even
among modern scholars on it being subjective. I appreciate and very much agree
with Carl's statement that the words "subjective" and "objective" are not so
much descriptions of the genitive construction in itself, but descriptions of
how the genitive construction functions grammatically in the wider context. My
intention was not to "settle" the issue, just to balance it.
Your linguistic question is about derivation. Although it is not a question of
changing a noun to an abstract noun, there is a suffix -SUNH that can be
attached to certain adjectives like DIKAIOS and AGAQOS to form nouns such as
DIKAIOSUNH and AGAQWSUNH. The L&N lexicon lists 12 such -SUNH nouns in Greek.
But that in no way implies that you can add the suffix to every adjective in
Greek. In particular, it is not possible to construct a noun *PISTWSUNH from
PISTOS (faithful). It would be an abnormality.
It would correspond to suggesting that since -ness is a very common derivational
suffix in English that changes an adjective to a noun, then we should be able to
add the suffix to any adjective. This is an impossibleness resulting in
abnormalness. Lots of nouns in English are formed from adjectives by the -ity
suffix (because of their Latin-French origins), like complexity and
impossibility. I can say faithfulness, but I cannot say faithfulity.
Iver Larsen
Kolding, Denmark
alice-iver_larsen@wycliffe.org
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