Re: Subjective and Objective Genitives

From: Carlton Winbery (winberyc@speedgate.net)
Date: Sat Oct 30 1999 - 22:35:41 EDT


Carl Conrad responded to me;
>>I agree with Carl's emphasis on not always making a too sharp distinction
>>in these syntactical categories that English speakers use in an attempt to
>>understand the specificity of the Greek. But in this case I think the
>>context would make the position of Fee more likely. The context clearly
>>contains an eschatological emphasis. The grace of God has been revealed
>>(EPEFANH) to all men vs. 11 and this leads to the expectation of "the
>>blessed hope and the revelation of the glory of the (our) great God and our
>>Savior, Jesus Christ." I think that in this instance the writer is thinking
>>in terms of the "glory" being manifested which makes the action of the noun
>>EPEFANEIAN, as the verb EPEFANH, transitive.
>
>Except that the form EPEFANH is really either passive or (I would prefer to
>say intransitive--derived from a present middle EPIFAINOMAI) whereas the
>transitive aorist would have to be, I think, EPEFHNE(N).

I guess I was mentally doing conversions that I often do with passive (note
Carl's dealing with the aor. in the sixth p.p.) verbs. For "Grace was
revealed" I was thinking "revelation of the grace." This would match
"revelation of Glory." I did not make that very clear.

>>EPIFANEIAN THS DOXHS TOU MEGALOU QEOU KAI SWTHROS hHMWN IHSOU CRISTOU
>>Could this also be translated "the revelation of our Savior Jesus Christ,
>>the glory of the (our) great God?" The word order seems especially strange
>>if that is what the writer was thinking.
>
>While I'm not altogether serious with this suggestion, it MIGHT also be
>possible to understand THS DOXHS here as equivalent of an adjective, and to
>understand
>EPIFANEIAN THS DOXHS TOU MEGALOU QEOU KAI SWTHROS hHMWN IHSOU CRISTOU as
>"glorious revelation of the great God and of our Savior Jesus Christ." I
>think there are some instances enough of THS DOXHS used as substitute for
>an adjective--although they may be without the article.
>
There are a number of places in the NT where the genitive functions this
way. It is most natural since the genitive is the case of description.

Dr. Carlton L. Winbery
Foggleman Professor of Religion
Louisiana College
winbery@speedgate.net
winbery@andria.lacollege.edu
Ph. 1 318 448 6103 hm
Ph. 1 318 487 7241 off

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