From: Harold R. Holmyard III (hholmyard@ont.com)
Date: Sat Jan 13 2001 - 11:11:17 EST
Dear Steve,
You write:
>Rom 3.29: H)\ IOUDAIWN hO QEOS MONON; OUCI KAI EQNWN; NAI KAI EQNWN,
>
>In the "old" BAGD the coordinating disjunctive conjunction H)/ (which BAGD
>calls a "particle") in Rom 3.29 falls under 1.d.alpha, "to introduce and to
>add rhetorical questions." My question has to do with whether H)/ in Rom
>3.29 is simply a marker of a rhetorical question or if in addition it is "a
>marker of an alternative" as described in Louw-Nida 89.139 (though it may be
>an alternative only implied by what precedes).
I've always understood the H)/ to mark an alternative as it introduced the
rhetorical question. I have not read Louw-Nida 89.139. If it is on-line, I
am ignorant. Anyway, the context suggests that it marks an alternative. The
Gospel offered a manner of salvation suited to all the world. The old
covenant also operated by faith, but by faith channeled through the Law.
Paul asks whether the manner of salvation God has laid out in the Gospel
allows room for boasting? Boasting is excluded because the instrumentality
of salvation is faith, trusting in God to save you. So one does not attain
salvation through a law of works, since Paul and the other Christian
teachers taught that people were justified by faith apart from works of
Law. Or, if that were not true, was God the God of the Jews only. Most of
the planet did not have the Law, or at least did not follow the Law in its
many works. So if God offered salvation through a Law of works, perhaps he
was God only of the Jews, having given only the Jews this Law:
"Or (is he) of Jews the God only, and not (the God) of Gentiles?"
Yours,
Harold Holmyard
Dallas, TX
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