From: Randy Leedy (RLEEDY@wpo.bju.edu)
Date: Wed Jun 26 1996 - 09:34:49 EDT
I'll cast my vote with David Moore on the proper construction of
Phil. 2:6, particularly on the point of the anaphoric use of the
article with EINAI. One further clarification seems in order: it
would be possible to supply two elliptical elements in the sentence;
an EINAI and an AUTON. If these elements were explicit, the passage
would read
OUK [EINAI] hARPAGMON hHGHSATO TO [AUTON] EINAI ISA QEWi. (Placement
of elliptical EINAI is awkward, and the seeming lack of a better
position suggests that supplying the word simply does not work in
Greek. Still, a copula is involved logically as part of the
object/predicate double accusative)
In English: "He did not consider [his] being equal to God [to be]
something to grasp"
In this reading, the EXPLICIT infinitive stands as the head of a noun
clause that, in turn, functions as the "subject" part of the double
accusative, and hence is articular, while hARPAGMON, as the
predicate, is anarthrous. I don't think Al Kidd was taking EINAI this
way; As I read him, he was trying to make it the copula between ISA
and hARPAGMON.
The real puzzle about this sentence to me is the neuter plural
inflection of ISA. The only thing I can figure is that it provides a
focus away from personal equality (which Jesus never relinquished) to
equality in accidentals such as the pleasures and glories of heaven.
But some extra-biblical references in BAGD suggest that I may be
straining after something, and that this construction may simply be
an idiom. If anyone can authoritatively address this point, I'd love
to see it.
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