[B-Greek] Romans 8:16: SUMMARTUREI TWi PNEUMATI
Elizabeth Kline
kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Tue Jun 10 14:49:00 EDT 2008
On Jun 10, 2008, at 10:50 AM, Brian Abasciano wrote:
> I agree with Wallace generally on this question. Is anyone claiming
> that SUMMARTUREW can only mean "witness with"? I think the important
> point is that it could mean either "witness with" (associative) or
> "witenss to" (intensive or indirect object).
A quote from the article
start quote///
One of the fundamental problems with this verb is that in certain
contexts the meaning of “bear witness with” someone can mean almost
the same thing as “bear witness to” someone. This is one of the
reasons why there is confusion in Rom 8:16. For example, even in the
indirect object view, there are various permutations:
1. “bear witness to” a jury or a judge
2. “bear witness to” the truth, act, opinion, etc.
3. “bear witness to” the defendant, either for/on behalf of (dativus
commodi) or against (dativus incommodi) him; this also shades off into
“assure.”
The first of these would be a pure indirect object usage: the jury or
judge is neutral and is hearing the case. The second kind of bearing
witness is a confirmation of the truth, etc. This would certainly not
involve an associative idea unless that which bears the truth-witness
is also cut from the same cloth, or if truth is personified. The third
permutation, that of bearing witness to, for, or against a defendant
is the kind of indirect usage I see in Rom 8:16. It is thus also a
dative of interest.19 But this is the closest of the three
permutations to an associative idea. So, how can we distinguish the
two in other texts?
/// end quote
We should pay particularly close attention to this statement:
"The third permutation, that of bearing witness to, for, or against a
defendant is the kind of indirect usage I see in Rom 8:16. It is thus
also a dative of interest.19 But this is the closest of the three
permutations to an associative idea."
There is some confusion in the treatment of this issue caused by
setting "direct object" against "associative dative" mixing
syntactical and semantic categories. If we just forget about "direct
object" and focus on the semantic question then perhaps we would see
that Wallace doesn't really think that "witness to" is the best way to
understand SUMMARTUREI ... in Romans 8:16.
Elizabeth Kline
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