ΕΝ ΕΦΕΣΩ

Today is a day that I have been waiting for quite some time:

LOGOS 4

Over the past few months, Logos has been kind enough to allow me to participate in the private beta testing of their (formerly) forthcoming version of their library system.

And let me tell you, it has been exciting.

The new version changes just about everything. And it’s for the good.

• The new interface is clean and simple.
• Window management has been completely revolutionized.
• Library management is less time consuming & more feature rich.
• New language tools have been developed & old ones have been redesigned.
• New resources & new library collections have been released with new content — including several resources that make me less interested in investing in another piece of software (e.g. my own collection now has Swete’s The Old Testament in Greek According to the Septuagint including the apparatus).

Interface & Window Management:

The basic interface now consists of three basic icons & three drop down menus in the top left corner:

“Home”, “Library”, & “Search” – all of which are rather self-explanatory. And “File” consists have various syntax searches, notes, visual filters, clippings, etc. that you might create as you go along. Under “Guides” we have the ever reliable passage guide, exegetical guide, & word study guide. All of which have received a nice face lift;

Organizing Windows has improved in some incredible ways. For one, it’s now possible to simple drag windows around and they resize to a highlighted area:

But probably the most exciting thing is the fact that now windows can be separated from the central program window:

Which then results in:

This definitely makes Logos 4 much easier to work with when using multiple programs at the same time compared to Logos 3 – or using multiple monitors (which I would love to have, but don’t).

Finally, had you set up your windows in a certain way a week ago that you want to go back to? Didn’t save it? Can’t remember exactly what it was? Well, Layouts has changed all of that:

There’s a reason though. Anyway, it is now possible go back and pick out a particular layout that you had used a few days before, rename it, and save it as your own. Currently, I have four such layouts. Why two Layouts with virtually the same name? Well, it’s a long story.

The Library

With Version 4, we can now both tag and rate the books in our libraries. Note that haven’t spent too much time ranking books –- Swanson’s dictionary is gets two stars. That’s not because it’s bad, just that it’s not what I would want. It’s a great dictionary for a quick gloss, but I’m very, very rarely interested in a quick gloss. Just want to put a plug in here for the slow, detail reading of lexical entries of full-fledged lexicons like BDAG, LSJ, GELS, & L&N. It gets two stars instead of one because it’s still far superior than Strongs.

Ah, but now we come to the interesting stuff in the library: new resources. Now what follows, as I understand it minimally requires the Original Languages Library, though you will need to go look at Logos’ website to double check on that. And you may have noticed it in a screen shot above:

We finally have something to compete with (and absolutely crush!) Opentext.org’s database. These are the same trees that Andi Wu & Randall Tan discussed at International SBL this past year, as well as at BibleTech:2009 (where there’s also a PDF & mp3 available for download).

It’s doesn’t do everything. But it’s a massive leap in the right direction. For one, unlike Opentext.org, Cascadia actually recognizes that there are more than four types of constituents (Predicate, Subject, Complement, & Adjunct). Unfortunately, the treatment of discontinuous phrases is just about the same and needs work. But Cascadia brings a lot to the table:

• Actual Phrase Structure
• More Clause Types – the inclusion of “Verb Elided Clause” as a clause type is incredibly important – especially for Paul.
• Recognition that, semantically speaking, copulas (e.g. εἰμί) are not predicates.

Here’s what it looks like in action:

Now I’ve only been able to search using this new database for about a month now, but I definitely like what I have seen, generally speaking. More than anything, I’ve appreciated being able to do the same search using both Cascadia and Opentext.org together and compare the search results.

For example, ditransitive clauses have had my curiosity off and on for some time now, so I constructed this search in Cascadia using the new and improved Syntax Search Dialog (It’s similar to the old one, but now you can drag and drop, which makes it easier to use and is so cool):

And essentially the same search in Opentext.org:

The results were rather interesting. Opentext received more hits:

The first two in Matthew aren’t ditransitive in Cascadia because they both use copulas. Thus, it is the initial adjective that receives the Predicate Function rather than the verb. An adjective cannot be an Object if it is the semantic predicate of the clause.

Acts 2:39 is not ditransitive in Cascadia because Opentext.org has incorrectly annotated ἂν as a Complement, which it very much is not. And Acts 25:27 has the rather semantically empty, δοκέω, and thus the semantic predicate of the clause is ἄλογον.

Finally, 2 Corinthians 9:1 is not ditransitive in Cascadia, again, because the verb of the clause is a copula.

So why did I go through all of this?

Well, for one, we finally have a second voice beside Opentext.org that provides an extremely beneficial balance & check for determining what the syntax of the text actually is. Of the five differences in this search, four of the were the result of Opentext.org’s simplicity (which, granted, at times is a good thing). But this search also revealed a tagging mistake in Opentext as well. Doing quality research is always going to be dependent upon the quality of the data we use. And now we have a significantly easier way to confirming what is the accurate syntactic annotation.

There is more to do in Greek syntax, of course, but I’ll leave that for another time. I’m planning on putting in another proposal to BibleTech:2010 on this very topic.

I’ll leave you with this: the preface from the Cascadia graphs, just to give you an idea of where they came from:

The Cascadia Syntax Graphs of the New Testament is derived from a new dynamic treebank project developed by the Asia Bible Society. The Greek Syntactic Treebank Project is built on the basis of a computer-readable Greek grammar, with the syntactic trees (graphs) directly generated by a parser. Manual checking and corrections are stored as data in a knowledge base to guide the parser. The syntax trees (graphs) are dynamically generated from the latest version of the grammar and knowledge base, which enables continual organic improvement and growth as the grammar and knowledge base are maintained and updated.

We humbly present this preliminary version of the syntax graphs to users of Logos version 4 and look forward to improving and expanding it in the future.

Randall Tan
Andi Wu
November, 2009

Andi Wu and Randall K. Tan, Cascadia Syntax Graphs of the New Testament (Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009).

There is much, much more to say, but I hope I’ve at least given you something to whet your appetite for the time being. Logos 4 is good enough that It’ll be replacing Logos 3 for me. Most definitely.

By the way, did I mention that as of version 4, my entire library is now indexed (which times some time, but is definitely worth it) and I can search my 2000 books in mere seconds for anything?

The Mac version of Logos 4 is in Alpha testing as we speak and will be have complete parity with the Windows version. That’s right, Mac users, you haven’t been ignored.

And did I mention at all Logos 4 for iPhone & iPod Touch is part of the deal?

Be sure to head over to LOGOS 4 to get the whole scoop and learn about new notes, clippings, handouts, editable passage, exegetical, & word study guides (or you can now create your own!). There’s so much that I could have shared, but I wanted to focus on the things that matter to me. So go, check it out: LOGOS 4.

Notes:

• All screenshots are illustrative. Resources shown may not be included in Logos 4 base packages – i.e. you need at least the Original Languages Library for either Opentext.org or Cascadia.
• Upgrade discounts are available for existing customers.

Other Reviews thus far:

Ricoblog,

Reuben Gomez

Steve Runge’s got a bit too.

Joe Miller

Thomas Black

Adam Couturier

Robert Pavich

Ken Morris

Chris Roberts

Dan Wallace has posted a very short essay that simply surveys the major interpretive landscape of 1 Timothy 2:12. He doesn’t give much in terms of conclusions about what his view is. In general that’s very helpful considering that most discussions of this verse are so emotionally charged toward one perspective that it can be hard for people to understand exactly how many complex and unsure issues there are.

And by the way, I can think of probably another half dozen that didn’t make his list.

Interpretive Issues in 1 Timothy 2:12

There’s been a good amount of discussion about the trinity at several different blogs:

Paul and Monotheism

1 Cor 3.23: Our Subordination to Christ; Christ’s to God (Monotheism in 1 Corinthians, 1)

The Subordination of Christ to God in 1 Cor 3? – A Response to Ecce Homo

Trinitarian and Historical Theological Ignorance

Great Minds…

In light of all of this, I thought I would share a few things I’ve read/written. The first is actually a post I wrote some time ago, which then turned into a post for the 2009 Trinity Blogging Summit: Exegetical Implications of NP Focus – its title for the Blogging summit was rather different.

The second is actually a Note from Facebook with some musings of Dan Wallaces’ very excellent book. I’ve reproduced the majority of the note below. I’m not sure you could consider this a review of the book, its just some random notes. But this is one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Book Musings: Granville Sharp’s Canon and Its Kin: Semantics and Significance (Studies in Biblical Greek) by Daniel B. Wallace.

Wallace’s new book on Granville Sharp and the significance of the Greek article in various KAI constructions is easily one of the best Greek monographs I’ve read this year (currently tied with Steve Runge’s Discourse Grammar. I read then entire book over a period of two days because I couldn’t put it down — though I must confess, the entire time I was traveling by car and plane.

Daniel & Tonya have written a post on Acts 10:34-35 (Comparing Acts 10.34-35), looking at the Greek & a few other translations along with their own.

What jumped out at me as the phrase Ἀνοίξας δὲ Πέτρος τὸ στόμα and their discussion of it.

They write:

1. Some translations try to hammer out this more formal speech introduction (”opening the mouth”), most do not. Why is it that the NET Bible can have awful translations and fantastic notes?

Now I’m not necessarily against the idea that the phrase is a formal one, but I am somewhat skeptical. I looked through a few commentaries, did a few searches across texts, looked at the context, and I really think that this is an idiom and less than a formal introduction to a speech.

Why?

Well, for one, I’m always skeptical of this sort of thing because foreign sounding phrases always sound formal  in English. I’m not saying that this is the case here. I’m just saying that’s always my initial gut reaction. So I dug through the lexicons. Louw & Nida say that it a formal Semitic idiom. Perhaps.

But BDAG and LSJ are interesting here.

BDAG cites the verse in question in its definition 5, but in definition 7, we’re given this little tid-bit:

to be candid, be open, intr. (s. 6 beg. for grammatical ref.; s. also 5a) τὸ στόμα ἡμῶν ἀνέῳγεν πρὸς ὑμᾶς our mouth is open toward you, i.e. I have spoken freely and openly 2 Cor 6:11 (cp. Ezk 16:63; 29:21 and ἄνοιξις).

Incidentally, its important to note that the 5a referenced in definition 7 is exactly the place where our reference to Acts 10:34 appears. This caught my attention.

So then, I turned to LSJ. Not much there. But more helpful was LSJ’s entry for ἄνοιξις.

ἄνοιξις, εως, ἡ, opening, πυλῶν Th.4.67, 68; πόρων Thphr.Od.13; χειλῶν Plu.2.738c, cf. PMag.Lond.46.274 (iv a.d.): pl., Porph.Antr.27; ἄ. τοῦ στόματος, Hebraism for παρρησία, LxxEz.29.21, 2Ep.Cor.6.11, Ep.Eph.6.19, etc.

And now my Greek studying friends, what does παρρησία means?

If you said, outspokenness or frankness, then you’re on the right track.

And that is why I do not think that Ἀνοίξας δὲ Πέτρος τὸ στόμα is a formal expression.

Besides, I think it fits the context, what Peter says in the following verses wasn’t planned or at least not completely. I’m sure Peter had a planned message or speech, but what Cornelius told him about the events of the previous several days changed things. And that’s why he says ἐπʼ ἀληθείας, which I think makes more sense as an adverbial usage (cf. BDAG ἐπί, definition 5).

In the most recently published articles for Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism, Volume 6 (2009), Martin Culy has written an article titled Double Case Constructions in Koine Greek. Its quite good. He approaches the issue from the perspective of Classical Transformational Grammar & Relational Grammar, which is interesting in of itself. Relational Grammar isn’t seen much ancient Greek studies, so its nice to read from that perspective – not to mention that we haven’t really seen any linguistic approach to such constructions in some time.

So go read the article, its quite good.

Personally, I would not approach Greek from any sort of framework that requires syntactic derivation (as both Transformational Grammar and Relational Grammar do) simply because Greek voice cannot be adequately explained from such a perspective. Specifically, English has an Active-Passive voice system where voce alternation can be easily via syntactic derivation. But Greek is an Active-Middle-Passive system (or better, an Active-Middle/Passive system) where distinctions between the voice cannot be explained derivationally unless you allow for an overwhelming number of exceptions in the form of the so-called “Deponent” verbs.

Now when I write all of that, I don’t mean to suggest that Culy’s conclusions are incorrect. I think he’s done some very good things here and I think its mostly right. All it really means is that since I would approach this subject from a different framework, my analysis (which I won’t show here, but does exist) would look somewhat different, even though the conclusions themselves would essentially be quite similar.

And for his own purposes, the use of Transformational or Relational Grammar as a framework is perfectly fine. I only write my words above to say that different linguistic frameworks are designed for different things and no framework has a monopoly on the right analysis. And that’s a point that Culy actually makes himself, albeit indirectly. In the last pages of the article, Culy suggests some “interpretive implications” for double accusatives. And to whom does he turn for his implications? Not to Chomsky (Transformational) or any advocate of a Formal syntactic theory. No. Rather, Culy turns to Talmy Givón’s Functional-Typological approach to Syntax, completely different theoretical framework for showing the significance of his initial analysis.

Again, the article is here: Double Case Constructions in Koine Greek (http://www.jgrchj.net/volume6/JGRChJ6-4_Culy.pdf).

The whole journal issue is here: http://www.jgrchj.net/volume6/

Previously, we introduced what seems to be the main issue for Daniel & Tonya:

The Sustainability of Communicative Methodology.

In our first post, we argued two points.

1. Traditional Methodology post-seminary (or college/university) is not sustainable already so questioning the sustainability of Communicative Methods is a non-issue.
2. In terms of within the classroom, Communicative Methodology is actually more sustainable because more students actually stay in the class.

I want to grab hold of point #2 for a moment. The very fact that Communicative Methods are more sustainable within the class, I would argue makes it more likely for them to be sustained outside the class for the very reason that there are more students learning the language.

Okay, I’ve not got that out of my system. Moving on.

This post is going to focus on the question/challenge of post-classroom sustainability for studying Greek. Let’s first look at the issue for traditional methodology first.

As I said previously, we can all admit that the majority of pastors do not sustain their language training, at least not to a level that would be considered sufficient in the eyes of their teachers.

But the few that do maintain their skills. What do they do? Well, most of their work is done by relying on memorization, paradigms, and lexicons. The vast majority of the time, its a whole lot of repetition. And those are the ones who make it. They put in a good chunk of time sustaining their Greek. The others, well, they remember something about the aorist and talk in their sermons about the active voice as if it means something about action. Sigh…I still need to talk to that particular pastor.

What about sustainability for communicative methodology?

Well, at the present time, we really cannot say much at all about it. We simply don’t know. We just know the traditional methods don’t create sustainability.

But at the same time, communicative methodology does give us something, something that D&T touched on, accepted as true, and then passed by.

Internalization.

D&T agreed with Seumas that it was a very good point that communicative methods internalize the language. And they questioned me for not mentioning that fact when I brought up the same point (why mention it when they don’t consider it necessary anyway?). Here’s the comment again:

We’ve not ignored the benefit of communicative methods as relates to internalization. Actually, we acknowledged it at the end of “Conversing with Seumas 3″. But it seems you have ignored our point after agreeing with it.

If, as you agree, ministers don’t need conversational Koine in their ministry, then they also have no need to internalize it. I’ve never run across the pastor whose needed to be able to speak the Greek that Paul uses. They all need to be able to interpret it and, we would add, be able to translate it for their congregations. To accomplish this, one need not internalize any conversational Koine.

Of course it’ll help if you do. But that’s not the point. The point is that its not necessary. And with the burden of time many students who are ministers face, time is better spent only on necessary things.

The basic argument here, I think, is something like this:

1. Communicative Methods are helpful for internalizing the language.
2. Internalization is only necessary if you plan on actually conversing in the language.
3. Pastors don’t need to converse in Ancient Greek.
4. Internalization is not necessary for Ancient Greek.

D&T and I both agree on point #1 there. Such methods are helpful for internalizing the language. We also agree on point #3 (well, mostly). Pastors probably don’t need to converse in Ancient Greek.

But its points #2 & #4 that I cannot and will not accept.

In fact I consider them baseless.

If a person has internalized the language and vocabulary and then also learned to read in said language. They will be able to consistently sustain that language to a reasonably acceptable degree. And when you combine that with audio and the internet, the possibilities are endless for the maintenance of the language.

Its the issue of how a language is sustained that is the true difference between an ancient language and a modern language. Both types of languages can and should be taught using communicative methodology. But when it comes to maintaining them, very different approaches must be used. You maintain an ancient language differently than a modern language

And when am ancient language is learned and internalized rather than merely decoded, we will have better exegetes who, instead of trudging through the details to determine the meaning the of the text, will be able to naturally read and understand the meaning of the text. We won’t have to worry about them getting caught up on little points that are irrelevant but are turned into some sort of major discovery.

So the issue isn’t, “Communcative Methods aren’t sustainable,” its, “Traditional Methods aren’t sustainable, Communicative Methods are currently untested, how can we ensure them to be sustainable?”

Typical/Default word order in English requires Core Arguments to appear closer to the verb than Oblique Arguments:

We do not tend to say things like:

The doctor removed with a knife her kidney.

Rather, we would tend to say:

The doctor removed her kidney with a knife.

In both sentences “her kidney” is a core argument and “with a knife” is an oblique argument.

Now, I know that both these sentences and the ones in the translations below are comprehensible. That’s not what’s at stake here. They mean basically the same thing, so when you comment on this post, please don’t give that whole argument about how this stuff about naturalness doesn’t really matter as long as the translation is “literal.” For one I’m really tired of that argument and I think its nonsense anyway, so you won’t convince me with it. But secondly, and more significantly, such an argument shows little awareness of how the languages work. When we translation Greek word order that is both natural and default in such a way that makes the English word order neither natural nor default, we also subtly change the meaning of the text. Specifically, we change the pragmatics of the text. When we place a prepositional phrase between the verb and the object, we draw greater attention to it. Were someone to actually speak the first sentence above, they would likely stress the phrase “with a knife” in their intonation. They may even pause after saying, “with a knife.” Third, its debatable whether this could be consider a “literal” translation anyway.

Now, on to the text at hand: Acts 15:37.

Last night I came across this in a KJV tradition translation and it caught my eye. So I looked at a variety of other translations. Here are the ones with a rather awkward sounding “with them” placed directly between the verb and the direct object – so much for the translations that are supposedly “good for public reading…”

Barnabas wanted to take with them also John, who was called Mark, NAB

And Barnabas was minded to take with them John also, who was called Mark. ASV

Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. ESV

Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. NRSV

And Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. RSV

And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark. KJV

There’s another problem from an English perspective with these translations. Its the combination of the strange position of “with them” and the “also” of the NAB & ASV. In English, “also” marks a focused constituent in a given clause. So what we have here, in the NAB & ASV, is essentially focus overkill and its often ungrammatical. We have two emphatic constituents in the same clause. This sort of thing can only confuse the readers. Now the translators of the KJV seem to have recognized this fact, which is why they do not have an “also” (though it is in Greek). The ASV, in following the the KJV, while also wanting to be the most literal translation it could, reinserted the “also” and it seems that the NAB, independently of the ASV (but perhaps unconsciously influenced by the KJV?), did the same. In contrast, the RSV (and thus also the ESV & NRSV) followed the KJV more closely.

Here are the translations that maintain the “with them” phrase, but place it in a significantly more natural spot.

Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, T/NIV

Barnabas wanted to take John, called Mark, along with them also. NASB95

Barnabas wanted to bring John called Mark along with them too, NET

Barnabas wanted to take John Mark with them, NCV

Barnabas wanted to take John Mark with them. NIrV

Barnabas wanted to take John Mark with them, GNB

These translations sound infinitely better in English (I’m willing to give the KJV the benefit of the doubt that its odd word order could have been felicitous in 1611). But not all of them have draw attention to John, called Mark, with an “also” or “too,” loosing the Focused nature of the Direct Object here (the NIrV, GNB, and NCV).

But this is where I get nitpicky (which is a silly word). Let’s talk about accuracy/literalness now. And this relates to examining why the first group of translations put the prepositional phrase, “with them,” where they did. Here’s the Greek text:

Βαρναβᾶς δὲ ἐβούλετο συμπαραλαβεῖν καὶ τὸν Ἰωάννην τὸν καλούμενον Μᾶρκον·

It seems that the first group of translations, the KJV tradition, were trying to keep “with them” as close to the verb as possible because in the Greek text, “with them” is part of the verb – the derivational prefix συν-. That makes sense, I suppose, but its about as silly as saying that you shouldn’t split an infinitive in English because Latin can’t. So, is it more literal to keep this prepositional phrase as close to the verb as possible?

Well, perhaps, but it introduces problems. A truly literal translation would require the translation of the adverbial καί, which modifies the direct object. So if you do not include it, you do not have a literal translation (ESV, NRSV, RSV, KJV). But if you do include it, you still don’t have a literal translation because then we have some sort of double Focus construction that does not exist in the Greek and is barely grammatical (if at all) in English.

Then if you follow the path of the of the second group of translations, particularly the first three, you’ve distanced the “with them” from the verb, so that we have a natural and default ordering of the Arguments as well as the marking of Focus on the Direct Object – though unfortunately, by placing the “also” right before “called,” the TNIV fails by placing Focus in the wrong place. It should be on the entire direct object “also John, called Mark,” not “John, also called Mark.”

So under normal circumstances, I would definitely say that the approach of the NASB95, and NET is by far the best and most literal approach to dealing with this verb.

But that was before I read what the NLT said at this verse. That’s right. I said the NLT. Here’s its translation:

Barnabas agreed and wanted to take along John Mark. NLT

For the verb itself, the NLT has got it right. They’ve successfully kept the meaning of the “with them” phrase directly with the verb by recognizing that the Greek prefix συν- doesn’t mean “with.” Rather it denotes the abstract concept of accompaniment, which is often expressed by “with” in English, but not necessarily so. In terms of literal translation, “along” does a far better job of maintaining cohesion with the verb, but also accurately and naturally conveying the meaning in English. After I read it, I check and found two others that roughly take this approach:

Barnabas persisted in wanting to take along John, who was called Mark, ISV

Barnabas wanted to take along John Mark. HCSB

But of course, there is still an issue with all four of these. None of them translation the καί, which, I would argue, is necessary for accurately conveying the emphatic nature of the Greek’s καὶ τὸν Ἰωάννην τὸν καλούμενον Μᾶρκον.

And that’s where things got amusing for me in this little search. I decided to check The Message:

Barnabas wanted to take John along, the John nicknamed Mark. The Message

Peterson essentially gets it all right where 15 other committee translations got it wrong.

“Wait,” you say, “He didn’t translate the καί either!” Ah, but there you’d be wrong, though I doubt Peterson did this intentionally. Let me show you why:

When we deal with phrasal verbs such as “take along.” We are invariably going to be dealing with two potential word orders:

Take along X

Or

Take X along

Now, think about how you would say both of these out loud. Which one of them would more likely lead you to place intonational emphasis upon X? I’m willing to bet that you’re more likely to say the second one (that and I’ve already surveyed people in the library where I wrote this). The fronted direct object makes it more appealing.

And that’s exactly how The Message translates the καί, with its English word order.

Who would have expect that The Message would get it right where everyone else failed?

A few posts ago, I suggested that it would be more helpful for students to learn case usage based on the lexical semantics of verbs rather than on cases and functions. I was probably rightly criticized for being so broad sweeping in my words, but I continue to hold that there would be great benefit in teaching semantic roles to students in some form – not necessarily what Danove or Wong have done (by the way, I just picked up Danove’s book for a great price).

I’d like to approach the issue from the different angle. Instead of simply glossing over the vast complications of how cases work, I’ll like to give you a case study that results from the many commentaries on Ephesians that I have read.

By basing our study on semantic roles rather than on case categories, we can teach students to focus more on the clause than on individual words – i.e. What’s happening semantically in this clause? Not – How is this word in the dative functioning?

I’d like to give an extended example from a commentary – actually my third favorite commentary on Ephesians. Its the longest commentary on Ephesians every written in English and is more comprehensive than anything else out there. If you want to know the literature on a particular pericope, verse or sentence in Ephesians, you’ll want to go to Harold Hoehner’s Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary. But as great as this commentary is, there are a number of times where Hoehner could have saved significant page space by focusing on how a given verb impacts the semantics and usages of the phrasal constituents within the clause. Specifically, by focusing on case categories and case usage instead of verbal semantic requirements, Hoehner at times conflated his exegesis and the number of exegetical options or meanings that are available or possible.

The clause in question here is Ephesians 1:22

καὶ αὐτὸν ἔδωκεν κεφαλὴν ὑπὲρ πάντα τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ

Now this is one of the more difficult instances of δίδωμι in the New Testament already, but in what follows, you’ll see that by focusing on individual words and their cases rather than on the semantic role requirements of the verb, one’s discussion of even a single clause can become quite unnecessarily complicated.

Beginning on page 285, Hoehner gives the following discussion (highly summarized here):

First he delineates the proposed meanings of ἔδωκεν. It could either mean “he gave” or it could mean, “he appointed.” Hoehner chooses the former meaning on the basis of it being the primary one for the verb and since it makes “good sense in this context” (285).

From there he moves on to the meaning of κεφαλήν and ἐκκλησίᾳ. Hoehner rightly follows Richard Cervin and Andrew Perriman, who hold that κεφαλήν does not mean “authority,” but rather denotes preeminence or prominence (see Hoehner, 286 for references). As for ἐκκλησίᾳ, he holds that it refers to the universal church.

From there we move onto a discussion of the relationship between αὐτόν and κεφαλὴν ὑπὲρ πάντα. First, κεφαλὴν ὑπὲρ πάντα could be in apposition to αὐτόν: “he gave him, the head over everything…” Or, κεφαλὴν could be a double accusative: “he gave him as head over everything…” Hoehner’s third view sees ὑπὲρ πάντα as further defining κεφαλὴν so that it would mean that the apostles and prophets were heads of the church, but Christ is appointed head over all of them. Finally, the prepositional phrase could be viewed as  attributive to the noun. It would then mean, according to Hoehner, that Christ has been given by God to the church as the head over everything. This section of on the accusatives here is amazingly convoluted and redundant – particularly since, for the most part, all four views are virtually identical, which is extremely frustrating.

But this is what gets me.

From here Hoenher discusses the dative: τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ. What does it mean? He writes,

There are three interpretations: first, it could be taken as a dative of reference or respect, that is, God appointed Christ as head over everything with respect to the the Church; second, it could be taken as [a, sic] dative of advantage, in which as god appointed or made Christ the head over everything for the church (RSV, NIV, NRSV); or third, it could be taken as a dative of indirect object, in which case God gave Christ to the church (AV, RV, ASV, NASB, NEB). The third option is preferred because it allows ἔδωκεν to be translated normally  as “he gave,” while the first two interpretations would make it necessary to translate the verb “he appointed” or “he made” (289).

I could go on from there, he gives a couple other reasons for why it should be an indirect object.

But this is the thing:

Had Hoehner simply stated at the very beginning of this 5 page discussion that δίδωμι with the sense “to give,” by definition, requires an Agent, Patient, and a Recipient, he would have saved a whole lot of ink and paper. He only needed to argue against the meaning, “to appoint” or “to make” once, but because he did his exegesis word by word, case by case, he had to do it multiple times – I think three total.

Worse still, in his five pages he lost the forest in looking at the trees and at times seemed to have made up a few exegetical options in his narrow word by word analysis.

Now I’m not arguing whether he’s correct or not about the meaning of δίδωμι here.

But either way, time and space could and should have been saved here by dealing with the semantic role requirements of the verb itself rather than dealing with each individual grammatical case in seclusion.

Most grammars delineate the meaning of the cases by providing labels for usage. I propose that a better way of approaching case usage would be to describe cases based on verb types.

I’ll let you in on a secret.

Virtually all of the categories suggested for the different cases have little or nothing to do with the cases themselves and everything to do with lexical semantics.

Two examples:

Genitive:

Wallace provides a good forty plus categories for the Genitive case. Why is the genitive usage so diverse? Well its actually quite simple. The genitive case is the default case for marking dependent relationships between two nouns. If you have two nouns where one is modifying the other, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have one of them in the genitive. What that means is that the genitive case doesn’t really mean any of those categories. They actually tend to be dependent upon the semantics of the head noun. And the same can be said for those verbs which require genitives.

Dative:

For Wallace, the Dative comes in second for categories behind the Genitive. So why is the dative used in so many different ways. Again, its deceptively simple. Basically, the Dative is the default case for non-subject/object Noun Phrases.* Because of this the Dative case tends to typically express reference/recipient/benefaction and when it does the meaning tends to be verb specific. And again, its meaning is virtually dependent upon the semantics of word it modifies in the clause. This means that when a dative has meaning other than reference its not the Dative noun, but the verb that is causing it. Thus: The dative of destination is only used with propulsion verbs and Possessive Datives only occur with copula-like verbs.

Pedagogy:

I argued that if we teach students a very simple sketch of case usage/meaning:

Nominative: Subject

Accusative: Object

Dative: Non-Subject/Object* (e.g. Recipient, Benefactor, Stimulus, Location)

Genitive: Nominal Modification

Vocative: Direct Address

and then taught verb vocabulary in a little more detail:

διδωμι “to give” <Agent, Theme, Recipient>

πιστεύω “to trust” <Experiencer, Stimulus>

διακονέω “to serve” <Agent, Beneficiary>

ἀκολουθέω “to follow after” <Agent, Location>

we would then be able see students grasping the cases more quickly. I’m pretty confident the vast majority of you reading could guess at the cases that would go with each of the semantic roles listed for those verbs.

Now this is a very rough sketch and I haven’t looked at any of these verbs super closely to make sure I’m right on those roles, but I think even something as basic as I’m suggesting would go a long way. And the tools already exist:

A Classification of Semantic Case-Relations in the Pauline Epistlesby Simon Wong

Linguistics and Exegesis in the Gospel of Mark: Applications of a Case Frame Analysis and Lexicon (Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series, 218)by Paul Danove

The latter of these is both out of print and expensive – though if you start putting money aside now, you might be able to picked it up HERE.

But Wong’s book is relatively reasonable, especially if you were to get an Amazon gift certificate for your birthday…by the way many of you forgot mine on Saturday – you can make up for it HERE.

Anyway, what is needed now, is a comprehensive description of all Greek Verbs, a description that is also based on the most recent research on the connection between Voice and Verbal Lexical Semantics.

*Some would argue that the Dative is used as a direct object for verbs such as ἀκολουθέω, but I would argue that the dative is oblique and actually expresses, depending on how you want to characterize it, location, path, or goal – the latter two being subsumed under location. And I would argue similar arguments can be made for all so call “Dative direct object” verbs.

The problem of verses twenty-one and twenty-two can be most easily seen in the perspectives of Max Turner and Daniel Wallace. The latter writes in Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, “In Ephesians, a more polished, less emotional letter, we are surprised to find [anacoluthon of the conjunction] at the beginning of the “house tables” (5:22): αἱ γυναῖκες τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν ὡς τῷ κυρίῳ (no other paragraph after 1:3 in the body of this letter begins without a conjunction).”^[1] Wallace believes verse twenty-two not only begins a new sentence but a new paragraph, in accordance with the English Bible translations.

On the other hand, Max Turner disagrees.  Regarding verses 18-24, he writes, “These verses are grammatically a single sentence (obscured by all translations).”^[2]

These two very different perspectives, both by respected grammarians are bewildering to me. There is a question that I would be inclined to as Wallace. You can probably imagine what it is. And I look forward to Turner’s NIGTC volume on this letter/homily.

^[2] Max Turner, “Ephesians,” n. p., in New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition by D. A. Carson, ed., in The Essential IVP Reference Collection on CD-ROM (Rev. ed. of: The New Bible Commentary. 3rd ed. / Edited by D. Guthrie, J.A. Motyer. 1970; 4th ed. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1994), Eph 5:3.