Re: TOU in 2 John 9

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 27 2000 - 09:42:27 EDT


At 8:23 AM -0500 4/27/00, roseann wrote:
>Another question about that pesky little preposition "of" - In 2 John 9 is
>there any grammatical clue as to whether the "of Christ" TOU CHRISTOU
>refers to the nature of Christ which is what is being discussed in that
>context or to any and all of the teachings "of Christ" meaning *from*
>Christ, in the general sense? Thank you in advance for any enlightenment.
>Roseann Ekman

No, I don't think there's any clue whatsoever in the language in which this
text is phrased; this genitive case form is purely structural and indicates
dependence of TOU CRISTOU on THi DIDACHi. It could fall into any one of the
many subcategories that grammarians have invented in order to be sure that
they have categorized AT LEAST as many possible ways of understanding how
the genitive is related to its head: so it could be "subjective" genitive:
"Christ's teaching"; it could be "objective genitive" "Teaching the object
of which is Christ"; it could be appositional or defining: "Teaching, i.e.
Christ" or "Teaching, the subject matter of which is Christ." But there is
no clue whatsoever in the FORM in which this text is formulated indicating
that it MUST be read in ONE of these ways rather than another. I think that
one MIGHT ARGUE from the larger context of the letter and of the Johannine
corpus that there is no real differentiation between the teaching that has
been given by Christ and the teaching that concerns Christ and His nature,
but such an argument would depend upon how one understands that larger
context, and I'd repeat, the way in which the Greek here is formulated does
not provide sufficient indication of which of the possible ways of
understanding was "intended."

-- 

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

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