Seeing a ton of comments in various recent posts, which go off in a direction almost wholly unrelated to the post they are underneath, made me think about coming up with a new way to do the "Open Forum": a feature I have had often on this blog through the years: where folks can talk about whatever they like, and even introduce new topics of their own.
It's simple enough. I will now have an icon (the one above) near the top of my sidebar: between the audio collections icon (man with headphones) and "Tax-Deductible Donations". That will lead the reader to the current Open Forum. When the comments get to be a lot (150-200 or so), then I will create a new Open Forum post (which will include a convenient link to the previous one) and change the link on the sidebar. Thus, there will always be an Open Forum available at all times (24-7!). But it won't take up space on my front page, while still being accessible. The best of both worlds . . .
The Open Forum is intended to be a place for all discussions unrelated to current blog topics on the front page of my blog (or at least in the current month, etc.). Enjoy, and please be cordial and charitable at all times: especially with our non-Catholic friends.
This is a free speech blog. I only delete comments (very rarely) in cases of outright vulgarity or sustained insults with non-substantive content. We hardly ever have trouble. There is no need for my constant moderation or excessive rules. I'm very proud of the high standard of discussion here, and of the conduct of my readers, for over six years now. Just be courteous and substantive and listen to the other guy and respect his opinion. In other words, act as a Christian ought to act. And if you are not a Christian, simply treat others as you would like to be treated (what we Christians call the Golden Rule).
It's simple enough. I will now have an icon (the one above) near the top of my sidebar: between the audio collections icon (man with headphones) and "Tax-Deductible Donations". That will lead the reader to the current Open Forum. When the comments get to be a lot (150-200 or so), then I will create a new Open Forum post (which will include a convenient link to the previous one) and change the link on the sidebar. Thus, there will always be an Open Forum available at all times (24-7!). But it won't take up space on my front page, while still being accessible. The best of both worlds . . .
The Open Forum is intended to be a place for all discussions unrelated to current blog topics on the front page of my blog (or at least in the current month, etc.). Enjoy, and please be cordial and charitable at all times: especially with our non-Catholic friends.
This is a free speech blog. I only delete comments (very rarely) in cases of outright vulgarity or sustained insults with non-substantive content. We hardly ever have trouble. There is no need for my constant moderation or excessive rules. I'm very proud of the high standard of discussion here, and of the conduct of my readers, for over six years now. Just be courteous and substantive and listen to the other guy and respect his opinion. In other words, act as a Christian ought to act. And if you are not a Christian, simply treat others as you would like to be treated (what we Christians call the Golden Rule).
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17 comments:
From the discussion on I Timothy 3:15 and "a pillar and bulwark (ground/foundation/buttress/support) of the truth."
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2010/03/biblical-proof-of-church-infallibility.html
Adomnan cited this grammatical point from H. W. Smyth, Greek Grammar:
"1146. A substantive followed by an attributive genitive and forming with it a compound idea, usually omits the article: 'teleute tou biou' (the) end of his life. (Less commonly 'he teleute tou biou.')"
How do you know for sure that "pillar and support 'of the Truth'"; that "of the truth" is an attributive genitive ? That is a syntactical category dependent on context.
I am not saying it is not, I am just asking the question and showing that there are other possibilities in interpretation.
It could be a genitive of source or objective genitive or some other kind of genitive. ( I cannot be exhaustive, but maybe you can, since you are an expert in Greek and can read it like you read the daily newspaper in English.)
A Descriptive Genitive describes the pillar and support - is it that? a pillar and support that is "the truth"; or an Attributive Genitive would seem to make it "a pillar and support that is truthful" - "a truthful support" or "truthful pillar".
or does is it a Genitive of source - "a pillar and support of (that comes from) the truth??
or is it an attributed or "reverse" Genitive - "Truth support" ?
or
Genitive of purpose ?
"For the purpose of (upholding) the truth" ?
or
Genitive of production?
pillar and ground that is produced by the truth
Continued, part 2
It seems to me the RCC interprets it as
A Partitive genitive = "the ground, which is part of the truth"
or
Genitive of Subordination = "over"
"ground over the truth"
The Partitive is the way that DA seems to interpret it.
But, in context, the lack of the definite article in "house of God" = "a house of God" - because the local church at Ephesus is one of many churches, and "a church of the living God", because there are many churches, in context, would seem to influence the reason for the lack of definite articles in pillar and support, rather than the genitive "of the Truth" being the controlling contextual factor.
Also, the relative pronoun,ἥτις would also seem to point to the lack of being definitive, meaning, "whichever, whatever,"anything which" - all this together in context points to the purpose of the sentence structure and the purpose of Paul's letter in verse 14 and the purpose of the church, to teach the truth and uphold the truth against false teachers and false doctrine - I Timothy 1:3 -4, 10 (sound teaching) - the purpose and context seems to be telling Timothy that the purpose of his writing so that he would know the truth, and know how to behave in the church, and that by teaching this, in a local house of God (in Ephesus), which is a church of the living God (because there are more local churches that just Ephesus), it also functions as a pillar (holding up) and supporting the truth (the doctrinal truths in the word of God; namely the Scriptures.)
Part 3
Furthermore, verse 16, which is a summary statement of "the truth", he calls it "great is the mystery of godliness" along with I Tim. 3:9, that the deacon must hold to the mystery of the faith, and Titus 1:9 that the overseer/elder must "hold fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, that he may be able to both exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. . . " - all this together gives good grammatical/syntactical evidence that a translation of "a house of God", which is a church of the living God, which is a pillar and support of the truth" is probably a better translation.
Furthermore, I finally had time to dig out J.N.D. Kelly's commentary on the pastoral Epistles and his comments are where I got my original comments (from memory).
". . . that each congregation, or church of the living God, forms. As in iii.5 [3:5], there is no definite article before church, and this suggests that Paul is thinking primarily of the particular local community. His comment may carry implications for the Church universal, but no doctrine of it is explicitly set forth here." . . .
"The local congregation, Paul adds, is a pillar and butress of the truth. As in the Pastorals generally, (see on ii.4 [2:4], the truth stands for the full revelation of God in Christ, but carries the nuance of 'the orthodox faith'. (p. 87)
"What Paul is saying is that it is the function and responsility of each congregation to support, bolster up, and thus safeguard the true teaching by its continuous witness. We should note that (a) the butress is probably a more accurate rendering of the Greek, Hedraioma ἑδραίωμα, (nowhere else found)[in the NT, it is a hapax legomena]than 'foundation' or 'ground' (AV), and (b) that the local church is described as a pillar, etc. not 'the pillar', etc. because there are many local churches throughout the world performing this role." (ibid, p. 88)
I think this provides lots of contextual and grammatical evidence that shows that I Timothy 3:15 does not go against Sola Scriptura, and it does not teach that the RCC is "the church" and it does not teach that the RCC is infallible, and it does not even teach that the Universal church is infallible; rather it teaches that all and each local church is supposed to support and uphold and bolster the truth, objective doctrine, by teaching sound doctrine and refuting false doctrine.
Also, notice that the example that H. W. Smyth gave is a singular substantive before the genitive - "the end of the life" or "end of his life". I wonder if he even used I Timothy 3:15 as an example of this rule?
Also, don't forget that the word "usually" in the phrase that it "usually omits the article, shows how careful a scholar he was, and does not necessarily prove Adomnan or DA's point.
Ken: How do you know for sure that "pillar and support 'of the Truth'"; that "of the truth" is an attributive genitive ? That is a syntactical category dependent on context.
I am not saying it is not, I am just asking the question and showing that there are other possibilities in interpretation.
Adomnan: I know for sure because Smyth uses the word "attributive" to describe a modifier by its position, not its function. So, every possibility of the meaning of the genitive (of source, objective, of purpose, of production, etc.) would be an attributive genitive. It makes no difference.
Here is what Smyth says: "1154 A word or group of words standing between the article and the noun, or immediately after the article if the noun, with or without the article, precedes, is an attribution."
Therefore, In "stulos kai hedraioma tes aletheias," "tes aletheias" is an attribuive genitive, according to Smyth's definition.
Your citation from JND Kelly is interesting, but all it tells me is that he, although a good scholar, made the same mistake you did. He did not realize that a definite noun followed by an attributive genitive need not have the definite article. Both "the church of the living God" and "the pillar and foundation of the truth" are definite nouns followed by attributive genitives.
If Paul wanted to make any of these nouns indefinite, he could have done so easily by adding an enclitic "tis, ti." Thus, "a pillar and foundation of the truth" would be "stulos tis kai hedraioma ti tes aletheias." By not inserting this "tis, ti," Paui shows he has definite nouns in mind. Greek is not ambiguous in cases like this.
And don't forget, Kelly is disagreeing with all the standard translations, including the English Protestant standard, the King James Version, which renders both "THE church of the living God" and "THE pillar and ground of the truth." I am simply concurring with the consensus, which you are attempting to undermine.
I also reject Kelly's rendition of "hedraioma" as "buttress." "Hedraioma" comes from the root meaning "to sit," and thus a hedraioma sits firmly on the ground. It does not lean against something off to the side like a buttress. Again, the great majority of translations agree with me on that.
Ken: Also, don't forget that the word "usually" in the phrase that it "usually omits the article, shows how careful a scholar he was, and does not necessarily prove Adomnan or DA's point.
Adomnan: Actually, this "usually" doesn't strengthen your case at all. Whether the definite article is present or not, Smyth says the noun is definite. You would need a source that said a noun followed by an attributive genitive "could" occasionally be indefinite if the article is omitted (i.e., the construction is ambiguous). Smyth doesn't say that.
Adomnan: I know for sure because Smyth uses the word "attributive" to describe a modifier by its position, not its function. So, every possibility of the meaning of the genitive (of source, objective, of purpose, of production, etc.) would be an attributive genitive. It makes no difference.
Does he say that all genitives are "attributives" ??
I am not an expert like you, but aren't all genitives defined by nature as by their position, after the noun or substantive, with the genitive endings, simple terms = "of something" ie, "the body of sin" ( τὸ σῶμα τῆς ἁμαρτίας ) ?? "Word of Truth" τῷ λόγῳ τῆς ἀληθείας, "the Word of God" ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ ??
Those substantives have the article before them. Help me understand the differences.
So, what other kind of Genitives are there besides "attributive" that are a separate category that have a different position. According to what you are saying, there has to be another kind of position and another kind of Genitive; right?
Aren't they always in the same position?
That seems to be what you are saying. Maybe not, but what other kinds of Genitives are there, according to Smyth? If by position, and yet Genitive is by nature a category of position, so it seems like a tautology, "attributive genitive" = "genitive genitive", if defined by position alone, all genitives have a certain position, right, following a substantive (noun, verbal noun) and usually communicate "possession of" or "description of"; in simple terms "of" or apposition, "that is".
Grammarians have different categories to group the different genitives into.
Could be 1. Adjectival Genitive or 2. Adverbial Genitive or 3. Ablative or 4. Verbal (in relation to verbal nouns) or 5.following certain words.
That seems like a mistake to define it based on position alone, not function, because the "bare genitive itself" is based on position (and endings) - it could be Genitive of Description or Genitive of Possession or Ablative/Separation or in relation to verbal nouns or adverbial and under those five large categories, there are many under each one, attributive seems like a subset of Genitive of Description. Attributive Genitive = one that specifies an attribute or innate quality of the head substantive. Grammarians have different categories.
Again, does Smyth use I Tim. 3:15 as an example of this rule in the same way that "end of life" is used? That seems like a Partitive use anyway, "the end of (which is part of) life.
Off topic post: Thanks DA for the open forum again
:)
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Adomnan,
Based upon what you have told me, you would say, then, that the OT sacrifices expiated sin in a real, though temporary, way. Can you say why that expiation was temporary, or as we discussed before, in a sense "incomplete?"
You have said previously that Jesus' death was not a penal substitution. Do you say, though, that it was a substitution of sorts in the sense of being an atonement for sin? Why or why not? In other words, what exactly did Jesus' death do for us?
PA
Two things:
This combox isn't an Open Forum itself, but rather, underneath the announcement of a new method for doing the Open Forum. The present Open Forum (no comments yet) is here:
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2010/04/open-forum-1-april-2010.html
Secondly, why were questions having to do with the 1 Tim 3:15 post put here instead of there?? (scratching head).
I'm trying to keep discussions organized by topic so folks can find them, and the Open Forum is for the purpose of topics not related to any (mostly current) post.
It's not a matter of life and death, but it seems to me to be a sensible policy.
Ken and Pilgrimsarbour, I'll respond to your posts on the open forum.
any possibility of changing the commenting system to something like what mark shea uses? Similar to the old system you were using, i hate bloggers login system
Haloscan didn't work very well. I have been satisfied with this system, myself. It keeps comments right with the post.
Secondly, why were questions having to do with the 1 Tim 3:15 post put here instead of there?? (scratching head).
Sorry Dave - my fault - I guess I thought they were the same thing (I thought the "new method" and the "open forum" were both the same thing").
No, in that question I was wondering why something that had to do with the 1 Tim 3:15 post wasn't put under the 1 Tim 3:15 post. :-)
in that question I was wondering why something that had to do with the 1 Tim 3:15 post wasn't put under the 1 Tim 3:15 post.
Dave,
I see your point now; you are right again; I don't know why I unconsciously did that - I guess I wanted to start fresh and be the first comment under the new "open forum" and capture the moment, and concentrate on Adomnan's grammar points.
Sorry.
Like I said, no big deal, and no problem. I'm just trying to help my readers by making comments (including their own, as the case may be) more accessible under the appropriate topics, for folks who are reading later.
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