FFFF,0000,0000THIS POSTING GOES BEYOND LANGUAGE ANALYSIS. DO NOT READ UNLESS INTERESTED. Bill Dickson wrote: >I am not entirely pleased with the suggestion that the Letter to the >Ephesians is something one must muddle through in the original. In fact, I >believe the sustained benediction of chapter 1 is utterly stunning in its >grandeur and style. It is true that one idea cascades upon another like a >giant waterfall of inspired eulogia, but it is a piece of work which I >believe drives one to his knees not only for its content but also for its >passion and splendor. Scott, in the Moffatt series, I believe rightly >compares it to the sublime work of Handel. > >"Throughout the first section, as we have already seen, the epistle takes >the form of a prayer. Ancient letters began with some pious formula, >thanking the gods for the reader's well-being, and Paul regularly follows >this practice, except that he changes the conventional phrases into the >language of heartfelt Christian prayer. In Ephesians, however, the >introductory prayer is extended over the man part of the letter. The >theological ideas are woven into the prayer. It is this that explains not >only the sustained elevation of the style but also the weight and >impressiveness of the thought. If Paul had written argumentatively he >might have felt, as we sometimes do in Romans, that he was running off into >arbitrary speculation. But he does not argue. He only utters the thoughts >that rise in his heart as he holds communion with God. Elsewhere he tells >us of a man who was caught up into Paradise and heard unspeakable words, >and in this epistle he seems to be imparting the knowledge that came to him >in those moments of ecstatic vision. Just as Handel composed the >'Hallelujah Chorus' on his knees, so Paul wrote this sublime epistle, in >which he tries to penetrate the 'mystery'--the ultimate design of God." p. >124-5 This discussion is a good illustration of how different people see the same text differently. Bill Dickson concentrates, I think, on the thought of Ephesians, and sees it as grand, elevated, sublime, the apex almost of Paul's writing. Carl Conrad comes to the text with classical language and rhetoric ringing in his ears--and shares the opinion of Eduard Norden in his ANTIKE KUNSTPROSA that the opening thanksgiving in Ephesians in the "most monstrous conglomerate sentence in the [ancient] Greek language. I am one of those who hold that for the very reasons Bill cites to praise the language that Paul did not write it. [That is an aside.] I find its Greek a bit turgid, making much use of plerophoria, with long chains of synonyms and extended genetival constructions. On the other hand it has a marvellous view of the chcurch and its unity. the seven-fold one in 4:1-6 (with the "one Lorc, one faith, one baptism" at its center) still haunts the church when it insists on certain structures as a pre-condition for unity. Pardon my longer post. It does take off from the language of Ephesians, but goes beyond the limits, perhaps. Edgar Krentz, New Testament Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago 1100 EAST 55TH STREET CHICAGO, IL 60615 Tel: [773] 256-0752; (H) [773] 947-8105 Reply to: FFFF,0000,0000ekrentz@lstc.edu