At 7:55 AM -0600 2/18/97, Jonathan Robie wrote: >Romans 7:13 has this phrase, which I find incomprehensible: > >hINA GENHTAI KAQ hUPERBOLHN AMARTWLOS hH AMARTIA DIA THS ENTOLHS > >I think that the phrase KAQ hUPERBOLHN AMARTWLOS is throwing me for a loop >here. What does this phrase mean in this context? As I'm currently reading >it, it says "so that sin should become (hINA GEHTAI hH AMARTIA) according to >excessive sinfulness (KAQ hUPERBOLHN AMARTWLOS) through the law (DIA THS >ENTOLHS)", and I keep wondering *what* sin should become according to >excessive sinfulness. > >Am I misunderstanding the way the word KAQ is being used here? Probably. (1) KAQ' hUPERBOLHN go together to form an adverb meaning practically the same thing as the anglicized French "par excellence." (2) hINA + subjunctive undergoes massive transformations in Koine from its primary function as a purpose clause in classical Attic. It becomes already in the Koine what it is par excellence in modern Greek: an infinitive able to serve all the functions of an infinitive when combined with different particles. Others may interpret this differently, but I'd say that hINA GENHTAI in the above clause really is the equivalent of hWSTE GENHQHNAI KAQ' hUPERBOLHN hAMARTWLON THN hAMARTIAN--, something like, "with the consequence that Sin becomes UTTERLY Sinful through the effect of the commandment ..." I think that quite possibly the rhetorical heightening in this phrase obscures its (relatively) simple meaning. "Sin" here, of course, is not some concrete sinful action but a demonic power that can and does seize control of personality, and when Paul says that the effect of the commandment is to make Sin become unutterably sinful, he means that the full dimensions of Sin's demonic aspect, always present before his Bar Mitzvah (my playful way of reading this passage, whether or not it really has any autobiographical dimensions), suddenly, now in the light of his burgeoning sexuality and adolescent rebellion against parents (and all that), is made manifest before his understanding in all its dreadful demonic power. Think of Martin Luther, cowering behind his desk and hurling inkpots at the devil in the corner. I'm not trying to be funny; I think that this passage is filled with a sense of terror before the demonic onslaught of Sin. And this sequence ends with a cry of despair: "Who will deliver me ...?" Carl W. Conrad Department of Classics, Washington University One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130 (314) 935-4018 cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/