Re: POREUQEIS EKHRUXEN APEIQHSASIN in 1Peter3:19~20

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Jan 12 1998 - 06:51:43 EST


At 3:10 PM -0600 1/11/98, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>At 09:45 PM 1/11/98 +0800, Steven Cox wrote:
>
>> The question is really fixed on whether APEIQHSASIN
>> is solely related to PNEUMASIN, or whether any time
>> relation can be made with EKHRUXEN?
>>
>> ie. yes we know that APEIQHSASIN POTE OTE.. references
>> the days of Noah, but the book of Enoch indicates that the
>> actual chaining of Semjaza and the other 200 bad angels
>> was before Noah's birth, not in Noah's days at all, so the
>> question arises - is this the same naughtiness that got
>> them locked up in the first place or is it their reaction
>> to Christ's preaching - and all 3 verbs POREUQEIS EKHRUXEN
>> APEIQHSASIN are POTE OTE Noah's day.
>
>I can't get it to read that way. POREUQEIS EKHRUXEN refers to Jesus going
>to the captives and preaching to them, both verbs occuring at the same
>time. APEIQHSASIN refers to an earlier time, POTE hOTE Noah was building
>the ark.
>
>By the way, can this be interpreted as "once, when Noah was..."? I'm
>comparing this to Colossians 3:7, where the same word combination occurs,
>but is punctuated differently.
>
>I'm reading it as though KATASKEUAZOMENHS is a genitive absolute "while he
>was building the ark", and I assume that the main verb is APEXEDECETO.
>
>Frankly, as I write this and stare at that verse, I'm tempted to put a
>comma between POTE and hOTE, as Paul suggests, but for a different reason:
>not all of these people had disobeyed in the time of Noah, they had
>disobeyed at various times. I think that the discussion of Noah and the ark
>may be a separate thought, related to saving through baptism.
>
>Does that seem grammatically possible? I hope I'm not reading too much into
>this...

I responded yesterday evening privately to Jonathan on this, noting to him
that I intended to make no more on-list responses on this thread (which
seems to me to lend itself to speculation more than to understanding of the
Greek). My comment was on his view of the Greek, and he asked me, as he is
leaving to go to my home town of New Orleans for most of this week, to post
my comment to the list. Therefore:

>let me make a couple comments about your last on-list
>response on the thread: (1) the punctuation between POTE and hOTE is
>inappropriate because the two clauses are tightly coordinated: the POTE
>construes with that aorist dative plural participle APEIQHSASIN: "to those
>who disobeyed once when ..." or "who disobeyed at the time when ..."; (2)
>KATASEKEUAZOMENHS KIBWTOU is indeed, as you surmised, a genitive absolute,
>but the verb in the participle is passive (KIBWTOS is a feminine noun):
>"while the ark was being constructed"--i.e. in the interval before the
>flood actually came God was patient with sinners and might have spared
>them.

Enough already.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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