Galatians 1:11-24

Jonathan Robie
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Galatians 1:11-24

Post by Jonathan Robie »

The text from SBLGNT:
11 Γνωρίζω ⸀γὰρ ὑμῖν, ἀδελφοί, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τὸ εὐαγγελισθὲν ὑπʼ ἐμοῦ
ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν κατὰ ἄνθρωπον· 12 οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐγὼ παρὰ ἀνθρώπου παρέλαβον
αὐτό, ⸀οὔτε ἐδιδάχθην, ἀλλὰ διʼ ἀποκαλύψεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.

13 Ἠκούσατε γὰρ τὴν ἐμὴν ἀναστροφήν ποτε ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ, ὅτι
καθʼ ὑπερβολὴν ἐδίωκον τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἐπόρθουν αὐτήν, 14 καὶ
προέκοπτον ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ ὑπὲρ πολλ οὺς συνηλικιώτας ἐν τῷ γένει μου,
περισσοτέρως ζηλωτὴς ὑπάρχων τῶν πατρικῶν μου παραδόσεων. 15 ὅτε δὲ
⸀εὐδόκησεν ὁ ἀφορίσας με ἐκ κοιλίας μητρός μου καὶ καλέσας διὰ τῆς χάριτος
αὐτοῦ 16 ἀποκαλύψαι τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν ἐμοὶ ἵνα εὐαγγελίζωμαι αὐτὸν ἐν
τοῖς ἔθνεσιν, εὐθέως οὐ προσανεθέμην σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι, 17 οὐδὲ ἀνῆλθον εἰς
Ἱεροσόλυμα πρὸς τοὺς πρὸ ἐμοῦ ἀποστόλους, ἀλλὰ ἀπῆλθον εἰς Ἀραβίαν, καὶ
πάλιν ὑπέστρεψα εἰς Δαμασκόν.

18 Ἔπειτα μετὰ ⸂ἔτη τρία⸃ ἀνῆλθον εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα ἱστορῆσαι ⸀Κηφᾶν,
καὶ ἐπέμεινα πρὸς αὐτὸν ἡμέρας δεκαπέντε· 19 ἕτερον δὲ τῶν ἀποστόλων
οὐκ εἶδον, εἰ μὴ Ἰάκωβον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ κυρίου. 20 ἃ δὲ γράφω ὑμῖν, ἰδοὺ
ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ ὅτι οὐ ψεύδομαι. 21 ἔπειτα ἦλθον εἰς τὰ κλίματα τῆς Συρίας
καὶ τῆς Κιλικίας. 22 ἤμην δὲ ἀγνοούμενος τῷ προσώπῳ ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῆς
Ἰουδαίας ταῖς ἐν Χριστῷ, 23 μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε
νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει, 24 καὶ ἐδόξαζον ἐν ἐμοὶ τὸν
θεόν.
1:11 γὰρ WH Treg NIV ] δὲ RP 12 οὔτε WH NIV RP ] οὐδὲ Treg 15 εὐδόκησεν Holmes WHmarg ] + ὁ θεὸς WH Treg NIV RP
1:18 ἔτη τρία Treg NIV RP ] τρία ἔτη WH • Κηφᾶν WH Treg NIV ] Πέτρον RP
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Wes Wood
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Re: Galatians 1:11-24

Post by Wes Wood »

At this point I don't have much to add, but on my first quick read the author's usage of ἐν At the beginning of verse 16 and in verse 24 stood out to me. It is not necessarily what I would expect to see.
Ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν.-Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους 29δ
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Galatians 1:11-24

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Wes Wood wrote:At this point I don't have much to add, but on my first quick read the author's usage of ἐν At the beginning of verse 16 and in verse 24 stood out to me. It is not necessarily what I would expect to see.
Yeah, I find the this preposition in Gal 1:24 καὶ ἐδόξαζον ἐν ἐμοὶ τὸν θεόν to be especially difficult.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
David Lim
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Re: Galatians 1:11-24

Post by David Lim »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
Wes Wood wrote:At this point I don't have much to add, but on my first quick read the author's usage of ἐν At the beginning of verse 16 and in verse 24 stood out to me. It is not necessarily what I would expect to see.
Yeah, I find the this preposition in Gal 1:24 καὶ ἐδόξαζον ἐν ἐμοὶ τὸν θεόν to be especially difficult.
I take "εν εμοι" in these two cases to simply mean "by me as an agent of some sort":
"αποκαλυψαι τον υιον αυτου εν εμοι" = "to reveal his son by me" which implies "I am an agent used by God to reveal his son"
"και εδοξαζον εν εμοι τον θεον" = "and they glorified God by me" which implies "They glorified God by accepting me"
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Iver Larsen
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Re: Galatians 1:11-24

Post by Iver Larsen »

Wes Wood wrote:At this point I don't have much to add, but on my first quick read the author's usage of ἐν At the beginning of verse 16 and in verse 24 stood out to me. It is not necessarily what I would expect to see.
Louw and Nida has 21 semantic domains for ἐν.

In verse 16 what makes most sense in the context is m to (experiencer): #90.56 he revealed his son to me.

In verse 24 I would choose k with regard to (specification): #89.5 they praised God with respect to me or possibly q because (reason): 89.26 they praised God because of me (i.e. what happened to me).

89.5 markers of an area of activity which bears some relation to something else - ‘in, about, in the case of, with regard to
89.26 markers of cause or reason, with focus upon instrumentality, either of objects or events - ‘because of, on account of, by reason of.
90.56 a marker of an experiencer of an event - ‘in relation to, with respect to, to.’
Wes Wood
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Re: Galatians 1:11-24

Post by Wes Wood »

I appreciate the notes from Louw and Nida. I have it on my list of books I doubt I will ever be able to afford. :(
Ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν.-Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους 29δ
David Lim
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Re: Galatians 1:11-24

Post by David Lim »

Iver Larsen wrote:
Wes Wood wrote:At this point I don't have much to add, but on my first quick read the author's usage of ἐν At the beginning of verse 16 and in verse 24 stood out to me. It is not necessarily what I would expect to see.
Louw and Nida has 21 semantic domains for ἐν.

In verse 16 what makes most sense in the context is m to (experiencer): #90.56 he revealed his son to me.

In verse 24 I would choose k with regard to (specification): #89.5 they praised God with respect to me or possibly q because (reason): 89.26 they praised God because of me (i.e. what happened to me).

89.5 markers of an area of activity which bears some relation to something else - ‘in, about, in the case of, with regard to
89.26 markers of cause or reason, with focus upon instrumentality, either of objects or events - ‘because of, on account of, by reason of.
90.56 a marker of an experiencer of an event - ‘in relation to, with respect to, to.’
Iver, I'd agree on verse 24 but why do you take verse 16 with that particular sense that you propose? Do you have any examples of "εν" functioning with that sense? My reason for taking it the way I did was because "εν" is easily read to denote an (indirect) agent, which I think fits the context much better because that is precisely what the writer is trying to prove, that he is an agent of God in announcing the glad tidings to the nations.
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Stephen Carlson
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Re: Galatians 1:11-24

Post by Stephen Carlson »

David Lim wrote:My reason for taking it the way I did was because "εν" is easily read to denote an (indirect) agent.
If Paul wrote διά instead, we'd have no problem with this interpretation, but that's not really what ἐν means. There's an instrumental sense, sure, but an agent sense is fairly unusual and not "easily read" at all. Indeed BDAG (s.v. ἐν 6) glossses that sense as "with the help of," which does not apply to this verse. For Gal 1:24 specifically, BDAG suggests "in my case," "because of me," or "for me" instead. The difficulty is that none of these proposals (including yours) fall under the most prototypical sense(s) of ἐν and so we are left to determine the least poor fit among the possible peripheral senses of this preposition.

My take on καὶ ἐδόξαζον ἐν ἐμοὶ τὸν θεόν is that ἐν ἐμοί is doing the work of an ethical dative / dative of reference (cf. Iver's choice of the specification sense, BDAG's preferred "in my case"), but that the ordinary bare dative μοι for this sense would be ambiguous with (or even blocked by) this speech act verb as an experiencer. So the dative preposition ἐν was used instead to avoid the meaning that they were praising God (directly) to Paul.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Eeli Kaikkonen
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Re: Galatians 1:11-24

Post by Eeli Kaikkonen »

How do you read ἐδόξαζον ἐν ἐμοὶ τὸν θεόν?
ἐδόξαζον / [ἐν ἐμοὶ τὸν θεόν]
or
[ἐδόξαζον ἐν ἐμοὶ] / τὸν θεόν?
I think this affects the interpretation of ἐν.

Edit: is the first reading possible?
David Lim
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Re: Galatians 1:11-24

Post by David Lim »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
David Lim wrote:My reason for taking it the way I did was because "εν" is easily read to denote an (indirect) agent.
If Paul wrote διά instead, we'd have no problem with this interpretation, but that's not really what ἐν means. There's an instrumental sense, sure, but an agent sense is fairly unusual and not "easily read" at all. Indeed BDAG (s.v. ἐν 6) glossses that sense as "with the help of," which does not apply to this verse. For Gal 1:24 specifically, BDAG suggests "in my case," "because of me," or "for me" instead. The difficulty is that none of these proposals (including yours) fall under the most prototypical sense(s) of ἐν and so we are left to determine the least poor fit among the possible peripheral senses of this preposition.
I was referring to verse 16, not 24. In verse 24 it is, as you say, probable that "εν" means something like "in the case of" / "with respect to", which is why I did agree with Iver. I realize that I didn't retract what I said earlier; I no longer thought that "εν" implies an indirect agent in verse 24.
Eeli Kaikkonen wrote:How do you read ἐδόξαζον ἐν ἐμοὶ τὸν θεόν?
ἐδόξαζον / [ἐν ἐμοὶ τὸν θεόν]
or
[ἐδόξαζον ἐν ἐμοὶ] / τὸν θεόν?
I think this affects the interpretation of ἐν.

Edit: is the first reading possible?
The first reading is not possible, as it would have been "τον εν εμοι θεον" instead.
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