From: Carlton L. Winbery (winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net)
Date: Sat Jul 27 1996 - 02:30:13 EDT
Randy Leedy wrote;
>Don Wilkins hit on a key consideration that has been overlooked in
>the discussion of Luke 12:10: the subject of AFEQHSETAI. It is not
>the person, who appears in the dative; i.e., AFEQHSETAI AUTWi cannot
>be translated "he will be forgiven." Rather, something will be
>forgiven him. The question is, what is that something.
>
>Surely it is too much of a stretch to import the idea of the man's
>total sin-debt, of which there is no hint in the context. The subject
>must be either the act just described (i.e., speaking a word EIS the
>Son of Man) or, less likely, the denial described in the previous
>verse. The only possibility I can see for taking EIS in a friendly
>rather than a hostile sense is to carry over the subject from the
>previous verse so that verse 10 means that the denial will be
>forgiven to the one who later speaks properly to the Son of Man, but
>the denial will never be forgiven to the one who blasphemes against
>the Holy Spirit. This construction of the passage strikes me as
>strained, but it's the only way I can see to get a friendly sense for
>EIS.
>
I would add to this a point from the book on Linquistics by G.B. Caird
(Language and Imagery of the Bible, I think). He deals with the passsive
used as a circumlocution for using the name of God. One of his examples is
from the beattitudes, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness, for [God] will satisfy them." Surely a person with any
Jewish background would understand a saying of this sort as "[God] will
forgive the blasphemy to him." The difference here is that the dative
(indirect obj) is expressed. But I don't see that that makes a difference.
Carlton L. Winbery
Prof. Religion
LA College, Pineville, La
winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net
winbery@andria.lacollege.edu
winbrow@aol.com
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