From: Larry Swain (lswain@wln.com)
Date: Thu Jun 13 1996 - 12:15:38 EDT
On Wed, 12 Jun 1996 DSiddle@aol.com wrote:
> I am very interested in an issue you raise in this last post, specifically:
> <The issue[s] of whether PISTIS should be translated "faith" or
> "faithfulness"[...]>. I wonder if this issue doesn't have more to do with
> current Christian use of the terms "faith" and "faithfulness" than it does
> with a distinction in our definitions of koine PISTIS.
Actually, all issues of translation have to do with our usage of certain
words and how that affects semantic fields. So in short, I would say
yes, the issue of how to translate PISTIS is an issue of what and how the
term "faith" is being used.
> I don't want to try to recreate my thesis here, but I am interested in how
> the folks on this list might compare and contrast "faith" and "faithfulness"
> as alternate readings for PISTIS, and how you perceive the relationship
> between PISTIS, 'ELPIS and AGAPH in Paul's materials. (pardon me if my
> transliteration is not up to par, I'm not used to transliterating the
> alphabets.)
It seems to me to depend on the context as to whether the believer is the
activator-finding God "faithful" (i. e. having faith) or is the
receptor-being able to be described as being faithful. But this is off
the cuff, I'm sure there will be flames.
Larry Swain
Parmly Billings Library
lswain@wln.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:37:44 EDT