Re: Exegesis of 1 Cor 15:2

From: Mike Sangrey (mike@sojurn.lns.pa.us)
Date: Fri Dec 31 1999 - 10:17:15 EST


George Goolde said:
>>The text reads:
>> EUAGGELION DI' hOU KAI SWZESQE TINI LOGW EUHGGELISAMHN UMIN, EI KATEXETE,
>> EKTOS EI MH EIKH EPISTEUSATE.

[...]

>>3. I understand the pleonasm of EKTOS EI MH but I am surprised that
>> MH rather than OU is used with an indicative verb. Any ideas why?

Carl Conrad said:
> Two thoughts: (a) it's a counter-factual protasis, which would take a
> MH and aorist subjunctive, but would be hard to carry over into
> English here: "excluding--unless you really had come to faith in vain
> ..." or (b) it's a cross (in very colloquial writing) between a
> counter-factual condition and a deep wish that what Paul perceives to
> be true is not REALLY true: "excluding--unless--but it's not true, is
> it, that you believed in vain?" That might require a different
> punctuation, but it strikes me as a possibility in what seems to me a
> very colloquial sort of sequence.

I'd like to make an observation.

Sometimes I get the impression that 'colloquial' means 'inaccurate',
which, of course, is not necessarily true. Your comment here,
Carl, brings that out--not your intended point, I think, but nevertheless
it does. We easily tend to think precision requires formalism; that
mathematical rigor is required in order for an author to be precise.

However, I was struck by how precise the Greek is here. If your
thoughts are right (particularly in (b)), then the reader sees--even
feels--the struggle Paul is going through. The text captures the
emotive nature and thereby Paul draws the reader along by bringing
the reader into his very soul. I can't readily see how one would
do that formally. Ironically, the colloquial nature of the text
(even the "pleonasm") is required in order to precisely convey the
full meaning.

I think a student notebook should at least mention this since the student is
going to run into many times when the text just doesn't fit the "nice and
neat" rules of formal grammar. The student should focus on the living, almost
organic, nature of the Biblical Greek text which "meets me in my jeans and
with a shovel in my hand." This colloquial nature is not to make the Word of
God familiar, but seeks to incarnate it where I am.

A happy new year to all.

-- 
Mike Sangrey
mike@sojurn.lns.pa.us
Landisburg, Pa.
       There is no 'do' in faith, everywhere present within it is 'done'.
             And faith should commend itself from within every 'do'.

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