Re: THi ELEUQERIAi in Gal 5:1 (Doch Nochmals)

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed Jun 09 1999 - 09:51:31 EDT


<x-rich>At 10:18 PM -0400 6/8/99, Bill Barton wrote:

>Carl Conrad wrote (June 8, 1999):

>

>CC>I am not close enough to a decent library where I could check

>Deissmann's celebrated book [Light from the Ancient East]. Could
anyone who

>has it in a personal library tell us a little more about this, please?
I

>ask this because it seems quite plausible that a dative of purpose
might be

>used with ELEUQEROW in a formula of manumission, and it strikes me as
a

>(rather!) thrilling notion that Paul could be quite deliberately
emulating

>a formula of manumission, in which case we might translate Gal 5:1:
"Christ

>has set us free to be free persons ...", i.e.THi ELEUQERIAi = hOPWS

>ELEUQEROI WMEN. IF ELEUQERIAi ELEUQEROUN is a formula of manumission,
then

>we would not need to fancy abstractions of Hegelian metaphysics.>

>

>Is it possible that "freeing with freedom" is a Hebrew cognate

>construction, so that this should be considered a cognate dative in
Gal

>5:1?

>

>Along these lines, Deissmann wrote:

>

>"Peculiarities of syntax and of style should not in the first instance
be

>referred to an alleged Judaeo-Greek of the translators, but rather to
the

>character of the original. We must, in our linguistic criticism,
apply

>this principle not only to many of the Old Testament Apocryphal
writings,

>but also to the Synoptic Gospels, in so far, at least, as these
contain

>elements which originally were thought and spoken in Aramaic"

>

>(Bible Studies, 1901; reprinted by Hendrickson, Peabody MA 1988, pg.
74)

>

>

>And Turner wrote along these lines of Gal 5:1:

>

>"The Hebrew infinite absolute shows its influence in the use of
cognate

>dat. of verbal nouns in LXX and NT (Thackeray OT Gr 48f, Johannessohn
DGKPS

>56f), e.g. Ge 2:17 Mt 15:4. There was already some class. precedent

>(Schwyzer II 166), but Biblical Greek has a wealth of exx: Lk 22:15

>EPIQUMIAi EPEQUMHSA, Ac 2:17 ENUPVIOIS ENUPNIAZESQAI, 4:17 APEILHi

>APEILHSWMEQA vl., 5:28 PARAGGELIAi PARHGGEILAMEN, 23:14, 28:26 LXX, Ga
5:1

>THi ELEUQERIAi...HLEUQERWSEN, Jas 5:17. However, the additioin of an

>attribute almost always results in the substitution of the accus. of

>content: so Jn 3:29 CARAi CAIREI becomes Mt 2:10 ECARHSEN CARAN
MEGALHN;

>but not always, because we find Mk 5:42 EXESTHSAN EKSTASEI MEGALHi 1
Macc

>14:29 DOXHi MEGALHi EDOXASAN."

>

>(Nigel Turner, "A Grammar of the Greek New Testament," T&T Clark,

>Edinburgh, 1963, pp. 241-242)

I appreciate the citation from Turner. I did raise this possibility of
influence of the Hebrew construction upon Gal 5:1 in my earliest
response to the query about the grammar of the verse:

At 9:42 AM -0400 6/1/99, Carl W. Conrad wrote:

<excerpt>[One other thought occurs to me that I am rather reluctant to
suggest, because I don't think of Paul's Greek as normally reflective
of Semitic idiom; yet ELEUQERIAi ELEUQERWSEN is in fact the sort of
"cognate" Greek verbal expression that is commonly used in the LXX to
translate the emphatic Hebrew "construct-infinitives." I suppose it is
at least conceivable that this is what we actually have here; if that
were so (and I rather doubt it), then the clause should probably be
understood: "Christ has 'freedom-freed' us."]

</excerpt>

And while I'd certainly deem this a possibility, I'm inclined to doubt
its probability. I'm no expert on Pauline style, but my gut sense is
that he is a native writer of Greek and that the Hebraisms we find in
his writings are more likely liturgical items of synagogue Greek, not
consequences of his own thinking in Hebrew when he writes Greek.
Deissmann too, if I've rightly understood what you've cited above,
seems to be looking for such semitisms more in the gospels and in OT
apocryphal writings that survive in Greek versions.

My own opinion on Gal 5:1 continues, for the time being ..., to be that
the text printed in UBS4/NA27, even if it is earlier and accounts for
the variants found in other MSS, is probably not right. I'd be inclined
to enclose ELEUQERIAi in square brackets (nor am I yet persuaded,
obviously, that ELEUQERIAi is a Dative of Manner, as Daniel
Christiansen most recently suggested).

Carl W. Conrad

Department of Classics, Washington University

Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243

cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu

WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

</x-rich>



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