nicholasj.ellis wrote:Eeli Kaikkonen wrote:The text says that it's the lust which entices.
I guess the point of my question is that this in point of fact is
not what the text says, just how it's typically read.
I'll still stick to my earlier comment. It's what the text says.
What the text says, literally, is that "each one is tested (passive) 'being ruled and enticed" (passive) ὑπὸ τὴς ἐπιθυμίς.
That's true, but it's not helpful because it's a tautology, it just repeats the words under question verbatim. We are trying to discuss about the meaning, right?
The question is what are the range of possibilities for that final prepositional phrase (agent means, etc.). Are the options indeed limited to your paraphrase above? Or do we have a wider use of ὑπό available?
I'm not quite sure what's my paraphrase, if not "it's the lust which entices". But I indeed believe that what the English translations naturally mean here when read without prejudice is what the Greek text means. If James would have wanted to explicitly say that lust is only "intermediate agent" he could have said so by using δια. ὑπό doesn't
mean intermediate agency, it means agency, but it
allows "real world" intermediate agency if context says so. As does the English equivalent. I don't know if I can say it more clearly.
If you still feel I haven't understood your point or you haven't understood mine, it may be because of different preunderstanding. I have read some semantics and tried to make clear to myself the limits of the language and the difference between linguistic and extralinguistic realities (which isn't easy!). Therefore I believe that what one word or sentence means doesn't limit or rule the reality, it just offers a viewpoint. And what language "means" is not the same what can be deducted from it. If we talk about the meaning of pass.+ὑπό construction, in my opinion it doesn't
mean intermediate agency, but neither it means that the agency can't be intermediate in extralinguistic reality. And what that extralinguistic reality is, doesn't belong to B-Greek.
Someone might find dozens or hundreds of instances where ὑπό is used with "intermediate agent". But that wouldn't prove ὑπό means it - only that it can be used in such contexts. Mark Lightman's example was relevant, but it shows only what I'm trying to argue: that ὑπό, which means agency, can be used in contexts where the real world agency is clearly intermediate.