[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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