Sauerkraut genitives
I’ve found yet another German scholar who prefers the Genitivus qualitatis of ‘evpistolh. Cristou/’ in 2 Cor 3:3. Namely, Franz Zeilinger, in his massive Krieg und Friede in Korinth. It must be in the Sauerkraut. He reasons that God, not Christ, is implied as the author by the nature of the ground texts referred to in Jeremiah and Ezekiel (cf. Vol. 2, p. 72).
Incidentally, as you know, I’ve been talking about the subjective and objective genitive the whole time. But evpistolh. is hardly a verbal noun is it? In other words, we are better of speaking of a genitive of authorship, and a genitive of quality. In fact, I suspect that this genitive in 2 Cor 3:3 conveys not only Christ as content or only as author, but both. In other words, we have a kind of non-verbal plenary genitive (cf. Wallace’s Grammar on the plenary). You know I’m right.
posted by Chris Tilling @ 6:22 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
What, don't you like Saurkraut too? I'm not so sure what I prefer, though I'm leaning qualitative. I'll really have to look into it in depth.
Question, do we have other qualitative genitives without verbal nouns? Ah, I'll go research that some.
Chris Weimer
Saurkraut don't do it for me, gotta admitt.
"Do we have other qualitative genitives without verbal nouns"
Oh yes, plenty - very common. Rom 6.6 (body of sin) etc.
The "plenary genitive" is another of Wallace's numerous subcategories that arise out of spontaneous generation to match translational preferences in the target language. They have (usually) nothing to do with what the Greek text actually indicates clearly. What disturbs me most about these subcategories is that those who rely on Wallace's grammar imagine that the Greek author was thinking in terms of such categories of meaning. That's not just sauerkraut; it's fantasization. Or, if you prefer, call it "sour grapes" on my part: I just think it is grammatical obfuscation.
"What disturbs me most about these subcategories is that those who rely on Wallace's grammar imagine that the Greek author was thinking in terms of such categories of meaning."
Yes, some can do. I guess that is the problem of a little knowledge! But if they read him carefully, Wallace is always clear to point out that this categories are arbitrary and are generated only to aid exegesis and should be understood as merely distinguishing lexical titles, rather than syntactical structures.
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