Page 1 of 4

Col2:17b-2:18a τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ. μηδεὶς ὑμᾶς καταβραβε

Posted: January 25th, 2013, 10:30 am
by Daniel Gregg
τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ. μηδεὶς ὑμᾶς καταβραβευέτω

It looks to me like the last clause of vs. 17 is introductory to verse 18.
proposal 1: take τὸ δὲ σῶμα as accusative so that καταβραβευέτω has a double accusative predicate ὑμᾶς and τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ
Could the sense then be down the lines of "The body of the Christ, let none rob you..."

proposal 2: any other explanation anyone can come up with that would allow reading the τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ as the start of vs. 18 as it appears that letting τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ stand alone is rather fragmentary.

Re: Col2:17b-2:18a τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ. μηδεὶς ὑμᾶς καταβ

Posted: January 26th, 2013, 12:55 am
by Stephen Carlson
Daniel Gregg wrote:τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ. μηδεὶς ὑμᾶς καταβραβευέτω

It looks to me like the last clause of vs. 17 is introductory to verse 18.
proposal 1: take τὸ δὲ σῶμα as accusative so that καταβραβευέτω has a double accusative predicate ὑμᾶς and τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ
Could the sense then be down the lines of "The body of the Christ, let none rob you..."

proposal 2: any other explanation anyone can come up with that would allow reading the τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ as the start of vs. 18 as it appears that letting τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ stand alone is rather fragmentary.
That's an interesting proposal. It almost works. I don't know if this verb can take two accusative objects, though. It's pretty rare, so there aren't a lot of examples to go on.

Re: Col2:17b-2:18a τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ. μηδεὶς ὑμᾶς καταβ

Posted: January 26th, 2013, 1:27 am
by timothy_p_mcmahon
I can't really make sense of your double accusative proposal. It seems at best awkward. It seems almost like you're taking σῶμα as a vocative.

Perhaps you could take σῶμα as an accusative or respect. "But as for the body of Christ, let no one cheat you out of the prize..."

Or are you thinking, "Let no one rob you of the body of Christ...", taking σῶμα as the thing the readers are being cheated out of?

Re: Col2:17b-2:18a τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ. μηδεὶς ὑμᾶς καταβ

Posted: January 26th, 2013, 8:09 am
by Barry Hofstetter
timothy_p_mcmahon wrote:I can't really make sense of your double accusative proposal. It seems at best awkward. It seems almost like you're taking σῶμα as a vocative.

Perhaps you could take σῶμα as an accusative or respect. "But as for the body of Christ, let no one cheat you out of the prize..."

Or are you thinking, "Let no one rob you of the body of Christ...", taking σῶμα as the thing the readers are being cheated out of?
Actually, I think it's much easier to take σῶμα as a nominative in contrastive (δὲ) apposition with ἅ ἐστιν σκιὰ. Simply understand ἐστί as the verb in the clause.

Re: Col2:17b-2:18a τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ. μηδεὶς ὑμᾶς καταβ

Posted: January 26th, 2013, 2:16 pm
by timothy_p_mcmahon
Barry:

I was trying to help Daniel work out his understanding of the text rather than advocating my own.

I'm not familiar with the term 'contrastive apposition.' Could you flesh out your take on the syntax a bit?

Re: Col2:17b-2:18a τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ. μηδεὶς ὑμᾶς καταβ

Posted: January 26th, 2013, 9:00 pm
by Daniel Gregg
ἅ ἐστιν σκιὰ τῶν μελλόντων, τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ.

I can see the possibility of apposition here, by carrying the verbal sense to introduce the next clause.

which things are a shadow of things coming, that is, [which things are] the body/substance of Christ
(is does not appear that accusative is needed in the last phrase, nom. will do, after all σκιὰ is nom.

This would be taking shadows as a reference to messianic typology, though I find it a rather esoteric way of expressing it.

I am having difficulty with the contrastive part. It would appear to me that δὲ would be explanatory, hence the "that is" above.

I'm not "locked"into my original proposal..that was just to get exploring this difficult phrase that looks like a fragment if it is made to stand alone,
and that is what I see in a lot of translations, where a verb is supplied, e.g. " but the body [is] Christ's"

If I may say how I would understand the main proposal it would go like this

τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ.μηδεὶς ὑμᾶς καταβραβευέτω....Now the body of Christ---do not let anyone rob you ....

here body = benefits of fellowship / or benefits of sacrificial offering, so there is a sense to get out of it.

What I really want to know is does the syntax allow it? Also have no problem with the appositional point if contrastive can be justified or is allowed to be modified to explanatory δὲ .

Re: Col2:17b-2:18a τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ. μηδεὶς ὑμᾶς καταβ

Posted: January 27th, 2013, 2:04 am
by Barry Hofstetter
Hey, Tim, I simply meant that it was in apposition to the previous clause, but in contrast with it. As for the syntax, it seems clear to me that the δέ connects it to the previous clause rather than what follows. It's quite common to have such a nominative phrase when the verb to be is understood. Such a reading simply makes best sense of the passage.

Re: Col2:17b-2:18a τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ. μηδεὶς ὑμᾶς καταβ

Posted: January 27th, 2013, 8:30 am
by Marc Possoff
I'm a newby but with the sources I read this is the way I see it. I'm not familiar yet with linguistic terms.

First the shadows Paul is referring too is future tense. These shadows which are yet future are in relation to the 'don't let anyone judge you in...'

I looked in the Greek and there doesn't seem to be the word 'but' present as in 'but the substance is Christ'. From an English standpoint in my mind when I see the word 'but' it means that there is a contrast per se and/ or an opposition per se.

So 'the substance is Christ' if I'm correct that the word 'but' isn't present in the original Greek? If I'm correct then it makes for a different meaning of the text in my mind.

Re: Col2:17b-2:18a τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ. μηδεὶς ὑμᾶς καταβ

Posted: January 27th, 2013, 8:56 am
by Barry Hofstetter
Marc Possoff wrote:I'm a newby but with the sources I read this is the way I see it. I'm not familiar yet with linguistic terms.

First the shadows Paul is referring too is future tense. These shadows which are yet future are in relation to the 'don't let anyone judge you in...'

I looked in the Greek and there doesn't seem to be the word 'but' present as in 'but the substance is Christ'. From an English standpoint in my mind when I see the word 'but' it means that there is a contrast per se and/ or an opposition per se.

So 'the substance is Christ' if I'm correct that the word 'but' isn't present in the original Greek? If I'm correct then it makes for a different meaning of the text in my mind.
Once again, here's the Greek text:

ἅ ἐστιν σκιὰ τῶν μελλόντων, τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ

The Greek word translated "but" is δέ. It is postpositive, which means that it usually appears as the second (and occasionally the third) word in its clause. It shows the relationship of the clause or sentence in which it's found to a previous clause or sentence, usually showing contrast or continuance. The articles in LSJ (Liddel-Scott Jones, the standard classical Greek lexicon) and BDAG (Bauer, sometimes still referred to as Arndt & Gingrich, the standard reference work for NT Greek), will give you plenty of information on the word. Here, it appears to me clearly to be contrast, especially because of the semantic contrast between σκιά and σῶμα.

Re: Col2:17b-2:18a τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ. μηδεὶς ὑμᾶς καταβ

Posted: January 27th, 2013, 9:10 am
by Barry Hofstetter
Daniel Gregg wrote:ἅ ἐστιν σκιὰ τῶν μελλόντων, τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ.

I can see the possibility of apposition here, by carrying the verbal sense to introduce the next clause.

which things are a shadow of things coming, that is, [which things are] the body/substance of Christ
(is does not appear that accusative is needed in the last phrase, nom. will do, after all σκιὰ is nom.

This would be taking shadows as a reference to messianic typology, though I find it a rather esoteric way of expressing it.

I am having difficulty with the contrastive part. It would appear to me that δὲ would be explanatory, hence the "that is" above.

I'm not "locked"into my original proposal..that was just to get exploring this difficult phrase that looks like a fragment if it is made to stand alone,
and that is what I see in a lot of translations, where a verb is supplied, e.g. " but the body [is] Christ's"

If I may say how I would understand the main proposal it would go like this

τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ.μηδεὶς ὑμᾶς καταβραβευέτω....Now the body of Christ---do not let anyone rob you ....

here body = benefits of fellowship / or benefits of sacrificial offering, so there is a sense to get out of it.

What I really want to know is does the syntax allow it? Also have no problem with the appositional point if contrastive can be justified or is allowed to be modified to explanatory δὲ .
I don't think the syntax allows σῶμα to be an object of καταβραβευέτω for the reasons already mentioned (the presence of δέ and the semantic contrast between σκιά and σῶμα). If you do look at the BDAG article on δέ "explanatory" does not really seem to be a category. If it were, I would see it as some form of continuance marker, but there is no preceding δέ anywhere near enough in the context so to justify it. It's a stand alone usage here with a previous clause containing a word which has semantic contrast with the noun in its own clause. The translations are therefore justified with this rendering.