2Cor. 12:6-7 διὸ midsentence

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Stirling Bartholomew
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2Cor. 12:6-7 διὸ midsentence

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

SBLGNT 2Cor. 12:6 ἐὰν γὰρ θελήσω καυχήσασθαι, οὐκ ἔσομαι ἄφρων, ἀλήθειαν γὰρ ἐρῶ· φείδομαι δέ, μή τις εἰς ἐμὲ λογίσηται ὑπὲρ ὃ βλέπει με ἢ ἀκούει τι ἐξ ἐμοῦ, 7καὶ τῇ ὑπερβολῇ τῶν ἀποκαλύψεων. διὸ ἵνα μὴ ὑπεραίρωμαι, ἐδόθη μοι σκόλοψ τῇ σαρκί, ἄγγελος Σατανᾶ, ἵνα με κολαφίζῃ, ἵνα μὴ ὑπεραίρωμαι.

Both H. A. W. Meyer and H. Alford comment on the position of τῇ ὑπερβολῇ τῶν ἀποκαλύψεων relative to διὸ. If διὸ is read, a full stop should follow ἀποκαλύψεων, see SBLGNT above. M.J. Harris devotes several pages to the various ways of understanding 2Cor. 12:6-7. Harris (NIGTC 2Cor 2003, p853) favors the most difficult reading where there is no stop after ἀποκαλύψεων and διὸ does not begin a new sentence. Harris does not provide examples from Greek texts where διὸ is found in the middle of a sentence.

How difficult is this difficult reading? I looked through many examples but I could not find anything similar to 2Cor. 12:6-7.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
MAubrey
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Re: 2Cor. 12:6-7 διὸ midsentence

Post by MAubrey »

Well, just searching for punctuation differences, here are some places where διό isn't preceded by a stop of some kind, it looks like Philo does a reasonable amount.

Like this one:

Posterity 73
τί δʼ ἕπεται τῷ μὴ κατὰ βούλημα τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ ζῶντι ἢ θάνατος ὁ ψυχῆς; οὗτος δὲ ὀνομάζεται Μαθουσάλα, ὃς ἑρμηνευθεὶς ἦν ἀποστολὴ θανάτου διὸ τοῦ Μαιὴλ υἱός ἐστι τοῦ τὸν ἴδιον βίον ἀπολελοιπότος ᾧ τὸ ἀποθνῄσκειν ἐπιπέμπεται, ψυχῆς θάνατος, ἣ κατὰ πάθος ἄλογόν ἐστιν αὐτῆς μεταβολή
What, then, follows a man who lives not in accordance with the will of God but the death of the soul? And this is named Methuselah, the interpretation of which name is, “the sending out of death,” on which account he is the son of Mehel, who has quilted his own life, to which death is sent, that is to say the death of the soul, which is nothing else than a conversion of it by irrational passion

(sorry for Yonge's translation)
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Stephen Carlson
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Re: 2Cor. 12:6-7 διὸ midsentence

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote:Harris (NIGTC 2Cor 2003, p853) favors the most difficult reading where there is no stop after ἀποκαλύψεων and διὸ does not begin a new sentence.
I haven't consulted with Harris, but this statement seems to confound text-critical and editorial practice. There is a text-critical canon of choosing the more difficult (but not impossible) reading, but that does not apply to editorial aspects like punctuation. I'm not aware of an editorial practice of punctuating the text to make it more difficult.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: 2Cor. 12:6-7 διὸ midsentence

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
Stirling Bartholomew wrote:Harris (NIGTC 2Cor 2003, p853) favors the most difficult reading where there is no stop after ἀποκαλύψεων and διὸ does not begin a new sentence.
I haven't consulted with Harris, but this statement seems to confound text-critical and editorial practice. There is a text-critical canon of choosing the more difficult (but not impossible) reading, but that does not apply to editorial aspects like punctuation. I'm not aware of an editorial practice of punctuating the text to make it more difficult.
No, Harris doesn't confound anything. Harris is one of the most lucid exegetes on the planet. My use of the most difficult reading is intentionally inclusive of both TC and exegesis, but the focus is on how the text is read. Literary critics refer to an interpretation of a text as "a reading" which is how I am using the term. Reading διὸ midsentence with καὶ τῇ ὑπερβολῇ τῶν ἀποκαλύψεων moved forward for "emphasis" (Meyer, Alford) is acknowledged by all as a difficult way to read the text. Alford considers it so difficult that he rejects διὸ.

Harris states that Paul uses διὸ regularly to begin a sentence. Harris seems to be making a safe statement, by limiting the scope of his comment to Paul's usage. This seems to imply that other authors might have a different practice than Paul's. Harris favors reading the text with no stop before διὸ where τῇ ὑπερβολῇ τῶν ἀποκαλύψεων is part of following sentence. This is acknowledged by nearly everyone to be the most difficult way to read the text. No examples of this syntax from other authors are supplied to support this reading and I was unable to find paging through Plato, Aristotle, Philo, Josephus a sentence fragment (no verb) preceding διὸ belonging to the sentence following διὸ. My search tools & skills are not equal to Mike Aubrey's. He is using better software!

The treatment of διὸ in the grammars is almost non-existent, so we end up with nothing but lexicons and I looked at all of them. It isn't as if διὸ were some sort of rare word. It isn't. It's a conjunction, not post-positive. Supposedly at some point in the history of the language it represented δι᾿ ὃ. Perhaps it is to trivial to comment on in the grammars.
Louw&Nida
89.47 διό; διόπερ: relatively emphatic markers of result, usually denoting the fact that the inference is self-evident — ‘therefore, for this reason, for this very reason, so then.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: 2Cor. 12:6-7 διὸ midsentence

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

I found several examples in Aristotle where διὸ introduces an embedded parenthetical remark within a disjointed sentence. This isn't anything like 2Cor. 12:6-7 διὸ midsentence. I also suspect that διὸ καὶ is something special, frequently used in Aristotle and also in NT Acts & the epistles.

Aristotle Eudemian Ethics 1248b, line 4
Φανερὸν δὴ9 ὅτι δύο εἴδη εὐτυχίας, ἡ μὲν θεία·24 διὸ καὶ δοκεῖ ὁ εὐτυχὴς διὰ θεὸν κατορθοῦν, οὗτος 5δ᾿ ἐστὶν ὁ κατὰ τὴν ὁρμὴν κατορθωτικός, 10 ὁ δ᾿ ἕτερος ὁ παρὰ τὴν ὁρμήν. ἄλογοι δ᾿ ἀμφότεροι. καὶ ἡ μὲν συνεχὴς εὐτυχία μᾶλλον, αὕτη δὲ οὐ συνεχής.

It is clear, then, that there are two kinds of good fortune—one divine, owing to which the fortunate man’s success is thought to be due to the aid of God, and this is the man who is successful in accordance with his impulse, while the other is he who succeeds against his impulse. Both persons are irrational. The former kind is more continuous good fortune, the latter is not continuous.

H. Rackham LCL Harvard 1935
C. Stirling Bartholomew
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