Subject and Predicate in 1 Cor 11:3 παντὸς ἀνδρὸς ἡ κεφαλὴ [ὁ] Χριστός ἐστιν

[Stephen Carlson]

In 1 Cor 11:3 παντὸς ἀνδρὸς ἡ κεφαλὴ [ὁ] Χριστός ἐστιν, what's the subject and what's the predicate? The translations are divided. In his intermediate grammar, Dan Wallace lays out the issues pretty well, but does not really come to a decision:

The complexity of the problem can be illustrated in 1 Cor 11:3 [anarthrous Χριστός in B* D* F G et pauci] (παντὸς ἀνδρὸς ἡ κεφαλὴ Χριστός ἐστιν [“Christ is the head of every man” or “the head of every man is Christ”]). Although κεφαλή is normally treated as the S in most translations, the parallel structure with the rest of the clause, where κεφαλή is anarthrous each time, may indicate that κεφαλή is the PN: κεφαλὴ δὲ γυναικὸς ὁ ἀνήρ, κεφαλὴ δὲ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ὁ θεός (“and the husband is the head of the wife, and God is the head of Christ”). On the other hand, since κεφαλή is followed by a gen. in each instance, and since it seems to be the known (the implied question being, “Who is the head of the husband?” rather than “What is Christ in relation to the husband?”), κεφαλή could be taken as the S. The paucity of data in the NT certainly makes for tentative conclusions until more work in a broader range of Hellenistic Greek is done.

Personally, I think that the topic structure of the discourse is more important than ambiguous syntactic clues, so I am leaning toward Wallace's "other hand," but I'm curious about people's thoughts.

[Barry Hofstetter]

I've always read it the prior way, but like you now lean toward the latter. However, with interchangeable statements it doesn't make a huge degree of difference, does it?

[MAubrey]

If ἐστιν clitics behave the way pronominal ones do, then [ὁ] Χριστός ἐστιν is the natural predicate/assertion.

[Stephen Carlson]

If ἐστιν clitics behave the way pronominal ones do, then [ὁ] Χριστός ἐστιν is the natural predicate/assertion.

Good call. I believe they do, but it would be worthwhile double-checking to see if A B ἐστιν means that B is in the predicate/assertion.

[Stephen Carlson]

If ἐστιν clitics behave the way pronominal ones do, then [ὁ] Χριστός ἐστιν is the natural predicate/assertion.

I should add that 1 Cor 11:7b ἡ γυνὴ δὲ δόξα ἀνδρός ἐστιν puzzles me on this hypothesis.

[Stephen Carlson]

I've always read it the prior way, but like you now lean toward the latter. However, with interchangeable statements it doesn't make a huge degree of difference, does it?

At the propositional level, sure, but propositional meaning is not the only thing that a text conveys.

[MAubrey]

If ἐστιν clitics behave the way pronominal ones do, then [ὁ] Χριστός ἐστιν is the natural predicate/assertion.

I should add that 1 Cor 11:7b ἡ γυνὴ δὲ δόξα ἀνδρός ἐστιν puzzles me on this hypothesis.

The woman, she is man's glory.

???

[Barry Hofstetter]

I've always read it the prior way, but like you now lean toward the latter. However, with interchangeable statements it doesn't make a huge degree of difference, does it?

At the propositional level, sure, but propositional meaning is not the only thing that a text conveys.

Good point. What else do you see the text conveying here depending on which one is the predicate?

[Stephen Carlson]

If ἐστιν clitics behave the way pronominal ones do, then [ὁ] Χριστός ἐστιν is the natural predicate/assertion.

I should add that 1 Cor 11:7b ἡ γυνὴ δὲ δόξα ἀνδρός ἐστιν puzzles me on this hypothesis.

The woman, she is man's glory.

???

Shouldn't that be ἡ γυνὴ δὲ ἀνδρός ἐστιν δόξα instead?

[Stephen Carlson]

I've always read it the prior way, but like you now lean toward the latter. However, with interchangeable statements it doesn't make a huge degree of difference, does it?

At the propositional level, sure, but propositional meaning is not the only thing that a text conveys.

Good point. What else do you see the text conveying here depending on which one is the predicate?

Well, the topic structure of the discourse for one. (See Wallace's implied questions.) There is also an interesting textual variant over whether Χριστός has the article, and it would be nice to know which one made more sense for Paul.