Participles and Eph 1

[cwconrad]

I have found this stretch of text as a condensed highlighting of the doctrine of positional truth (in him). This formula is Paul's favorite expression for positional truth found throughout all his letters. Note that this doctrine stops at verse 12 and picks up again in ch 2.

Brett, we scrupulously avoid discussing theological doctrines in this forum; our focus is on the Greek text and how the Greek text is to be understood as a Greek text, not as a theological formulation. Please see our policy on "respectful discourse" -- by which we mean keeping the discussion clear of issues upon which participants may hold widely divergent perspectives:
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viewtopic.php?f=38&t=7&sid=c8689c77a576 ... 103abd0#p9

[Stephen Hughes]

the better Greek authors are those that use participles to the best advantage

I think that it is generally agreed that the best authours in the New Testament are Paul and Luke. This discussion started in the hopes of finding a better description of Koine grammar at the intermediate level and I hope that we can discuss and draw out what it is about this passage that marks it as a less skillful use of participles (and relatives) than best practice would determine.

you suggested it might be an outline that could and should have been fleshed out

While in every act of preaching and teaching, there is a "fleshing out" of passages. In this particular case, because many of the elements that are usually present in a sentence, that there is a specific need to flesh things out. I was thinking of things like; in Ephesians 1:5 προορίσας ἡμᾶς εἰς υἱοθεσίαν διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς αὐτόν, κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ there are a considerably higher number of prepositions than average hanging on the one non-finite verbal form - one or two might be okay but four seems like we have to slow down and think individually about how each one plus the ἡμᾶς all relate back to the προορίσας. While it is theoretically possible to do that, I agree with you that it is of a different quality than other passages. I also think that most expositors wouldn't mind adding other explanatory words when going through this passage. I was thinking of something like προορίσας ἡμᾶς εἰς (= to receive) υἱοθεσίαν διὰ (=because of the work which as be done by) Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς (=that he might make us a people for) αὐτόν, κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ (= as he had decided before all ages to do for his own good pleasure). A participle carries aspect and gives us enough information so that we more or less know who it is referring to, but it lacks temporal reference and modality, which could be added during a "fleshing out" process. But you have offered another explanation for the forms.

it might be viewed as a prayer of thanksgiving – certainly it’s a “song of praise for works of salvation.”

Yes, in making those changes, it seems more like the later more "thought out" prayer adapted (in general his "adaptation" was a shortening) by John Chrysostom (from the earlier material brought together and arranged by Basil).

they’ve heard these snippets many times over the years

We know that some of the earliest forms of communal worship in the Christian church continued the Jewish practice of reciting the Psalms (and especially Psalm 50 (LXX), which I mentioned earlier in this discussion) either in particular contexts or in cycles either individually, communally or in antiphon.

What I had in mind here was the formulaic “Baruch Atah … “ with an implicit εἶ added to the opening εὐλογητός.

The elements here are specifically Christian (eg. διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ).

The prayers in the liturgical service that I quoted from earlier in the is discussion begins with Εὐλογημένη ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος, νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ καὶ εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. "Blessed is the kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages." Which is really an historically much later formulation than this one - after the centuries of christological and trinitarian disputes and after Basil actually referred to the Holy Spirit as God, rather than only using the adjective "divine" or saying God's Spirit as others had done before. Perhaps this passage was formulated in response to other (judaising, gnostic, or another) doctrinal confusion.

It does seem to me that the better Greek authors are those that use participles to the best advantage.

I hope that we can find out what that is more precisely in an intermediate grammar, in part to be able to objectively judge passages like this and in part just to know what that best advantage is.

[Louis L Sorenson]

What book has the best discussion about participles? Is there a book for participle similar to "The Noun Phrase in Greek" by Bakker?

[Brett]

Eph 1:3-12:
Εὐλογητὸς ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὁ εὐλογήσας ἡμᾶς ἐν πάσῃ εὐλογίᾳ πνευματικῇ ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις ἐν Χριστῷ, 4 καθὼς ἐξελέξω ἡμᾶς ἐν αὐτῷ πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου εἶναι ἡμᾶς ἁγίους καὶ ἀμώμους κατενώπιόνν σου ἐν ἀγάπῃ, 5 προορίσας ἡμᾶς εἰς υἱοθεσίαν διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς αὐτόν, κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν τοῦ θελήματός σου, 6 εἰς ἔπαινον δόξης τῆς χάριτός σου ἧς ἐχαρίτωσαας ἡμᾶς ἐν τῷ ἠγαπημένῳ. 7 Ἐν ᾧ ἔχομεν τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ, τὴν ἄφεσιν τῶν παραπτωμάτων, κατὰ τὸ πλοῦτος τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ 8 ἧς ἐπερίσσευσεν εἰς ἡμᾶς, ἐν πάσῃ σοφίᾳ καὶ φρονήσει, 9 γνωρίσας ἡμῖν τὸ μυστήριον τοῦ θελήματός σου, κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν σου ἣν προέθου ἐν αὐτῷ 10 εἰς οἰκονομίαν τοῦ πληρώματος τῶν καιρῶν, ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι τὰ πάντα ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ, τὰ ἐπὶ τοῖς οὐρανοῖς καὶ τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἐν αὐτῷ. 11 Ἐν ᾧ καὶ ἐκληρώθημεν προορισθέντες κατὰ πρόθεσιν τοῦ τὰ πάντα ἐνεργοῦντος κατὰ τὴν βουλὴν τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ 12 εἰς τὸ εἶναι ἡμᾶς εἰς ἔπαινον δόξης αὐτοῦ τοὺς προηλπικότας ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ.

My apologies for using a theological term. Let me restate this.

The phrases ἐν αὐτῷ, ἐν ᾧ, and ἐν Χριστῷ used here in this text shows a very high usage rate from other contemporary usage of this expression. This section that has us all baffled may very well be related to this highly condensed usage of this express (ἐν + locative noun/pronoun), especially in the letters traditionally ascribed to Paul.

[Stephen Hughes]

it seems to me that a participle in the nominative can perform the same function as a clarifying relative clause. I think that participles are often used to add a clarifying adverbial element and that a relative clause may do no more than clarify something about the identity of the one being talked about.

Bearing this statement of yours in mind, I had a read through the Book from Galatians to Colossians before turning in last night to see if there were any other comparable passages. Two things impressed me, first the use of ἐν Χριστῷ and second the (over) use of prepositional phrases with participles.

The addition / use of ἐν Χριστῷ seems to be as much an additional unit in Greek as it is in Christian English. That is to say that I think that a Greek speaker reading the New Testament would have had as much of a jolt on the ears in Greek as an English speaker has now when people use "God" (in a positive way, I don't mean like OMG! etc) in everyday speech. It is almost always a grammatically redundant unit, and I assume therefore that it must have been added for its own special purpose. Stating that from another direction, in a large number of cases ἐν Χριστῷ could be left out, without affecting the grammatical structure built around the various verbs.

It seems that besides in Ephesians 1 (which are discussing here) there is a tendency to use what appears to be too many prepositional phrases there are other places that are similar. It is logical that a form that carries only aspect and number case, could carry more information, but when I am reading, I find that I need to process more of what is going on, to remember the tense of the main verb and apply it to the participle. I'll look more closely at the examples that I found and try to process why they could be like that.

[Stephen Hughes]

ἐν + locative noun/pronoun

The locative is almost non-existent in the written record of Greek. It seems that following the forays into historical linguistics, there is the idea that the full case system of PIE somehow exists in Koine Greek too. Standing back from that argument and thinking about what would need to have happened for that to be the case makes it seem improbable.

I think it is more "scientific" to talk about linguistic functional needs and capabilities. As we live in both time and space, human beings need to express the idea of place. Place is expressed in a number of ways including starting point, region traversed, location in which an action takes place and place at which an action terminates. Of course the locative case used to express some of this range of meaning, but now it doesn't.

I don't think that the ἐν somehow unlocks the locative hidden within the dative. I have no trouble working inside a three oblique case is three oblique case system. It seems to me that the ἐν diverts attention from the noun / pronoun which is in the dative. For example, a tool is not the point of what is being talked about but the thing being changed is, so tools are often with an ἐν with a dative.

Throughout the early centuries of Christianity there were people that thought that the Ἐν ἀρχῇ in John 1:1 needed to be a place or a physically definable existence. The logical developments from that assumption led to the creation of many complex ideas.

Besides my general belief that there is no crypto-locative case in Greek, I also think that ἐν Χριστῷ doesn't need to be taken as a locative sense. There are a wide range of grammatical possibilities open to us. Because we have a wide range of possibilities, the passage doesn't give unequivocally support to a particular theory or doctrine. If there was only one possible grammatical interpretation, that wouldn't imply that it could be understood only in one way.