From: Ben Crick (ben.crick@argonet.co.uk)
Date: Sun Jul 25 1999 - 11:05:36 EDT
On Sat 24 Jul 99 (15:44:43), dpreznik@usa.net wrote:
> What can AKOH PISTEWS mean: hearing with faith, or preaching about
> faith, or anything else?
Dear Dmitriy
It is often helpful when considering what appears to be a simple
genitive construction, to see if it is a Hebraism: a Greek version
of the Hebrew Construct Relationship.
Hebrew is short of adjectives; so characteristically to say a phrase like
"a faithful hearing", one would put "a hearing-of faith": where "hearing-of"
is a noun in the Construct State. This comes into Greek as EX AKOHS PISTEWS,
where the "of" gets taken from the end of "hearing-of" and included in
the Genitive Case ending, "of faith".
So when I see a Genitive pair like this, I don't ask myself "Is this
a subjective or an objective Genitive?"; I try treating the word in
the Genitive as an Adjective qualifying the other word in the pair.
So Paul's rhetorical question is "Received ye the Spirit by the works of
the Law, or as a result of faithfully listening [to the Word]?" (paying
faithful attention to the Word; accepting the Word by faith).
Xorosho?
Ben
-- Revd Ben Crick, BA CF <ben.crick@argonet.co.uk> 232 Canterbury Road, Birchington, Kent, CT7 9TD (UK) http://www.cnetwork.co.uk/crick.htm--- B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu] To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
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