From: Iver Larsen (alice-iver_larsen@wycliffe.org)
Date: Fri Dec 29 2000 - 06:02:12 EST
To: Steven Craig
From: Iver Larsen,
>
> << BDAG translates the same phrase as "eat with offense (to the scruples of
> another)". >>
>
> This pre-dates Danker, BAG (1st English edition, 1957) gives the same gloss.
Thank you. I suspected that.
> << Bauer translates DIA PROSKOMMATOS ESQIEIN as "mit Anstoss, mit Bedenken
> essen" which in English means something like "to eat while taking offence
> at, with scruples". Bauer apparently understands the passage to say that it
> is the one who eats who feels the scruples or takes offence at the action.
> This is the interpretation prevalent in German and Scandinavian Biblical
> scholarship as exemplified in the various published Bibles in those
> languages. >>
>
> IMO in understanding the crux of the issue between these two
> interpretations, one should focus on PROSKOMMA and not DIA, since IMO both
> interpretations can see DIA as a "DIA of attendant circumstances." I think
> that BDAG weakly indicates both these possibilities in its entry under
> PROSKOMMA. It translates DIA PROSKOMMATOS ESQIEIN as "eat and stumble in
> the process." Then it suggests that "Some would put this under 2," but
> unfortunately, it doesn't make clear what is meant.
I agree that the way one understands PROSKOMMA is crucial to how one interprets
the passage. It is interesting that one interpretation has become prevalent
among those who speak English and apparently also French while another
interpretation is prevalent among speakers of Germanic languages. This could
well be an influence from how PROSKOMMA has been translated into those
languages. The word "offense" suggests that someone is offending me. It has a
different semantic range, different nuances, than "scruples", "stumbling" or
"stumbling block". Somehow it focuses more on the one who causes the offense,
whereas "stumbling" focuses on the act of doing something wrong that one did not
intend to do. It is like tripping over a stone, over a "stumbling block".
"Scruples" has a different nuance of doing something that I believe is wrong or
at least I do it with much hesitance and many questions. In 14:13 Paul focuses
on the person who causes the stumbling. He does so by adding the word TIQENAI to
PROSKOMMA. Here someone "puts a stumbling block" in the path of another person.
PROSKOMMA in itself does not carry the meaning of "causing stumbling". It
carries the meaning of "stumbling" or "stumbling block". The stumbling block is
not a person, but a thing or an event.
Bauer (6th edition) lists Rom 14:20 under PROSKOMMA 1b, but gives no
translation. It only refers the reader to DIA AIII 1c. So the translation by
BDAG you mention looks like an addition, but an interesting one, because "eat
and stumble in the process" is definitely accompanying circumstance and agrees
with my preferred interpretation. It is quite different from the translation of
the same phrase in the same passage under DIA: "eat with offense (to the
scruples of another)" and this points to an inconsistency in BDAG which is not
present in Bauer.
The comment "Some would put this under 2" is an attempt by BDAG to accommodate
the English tradition which is foreign to Bauer. I assume that BDAG has two
senses under PROSKOMMA like Bauer has. Sense 1 is "the stumbling itself", that
is, the act of stumbling. And Bauer lists Rom 14:20 under sense 1. Sense 2 is
"the occasion for the stumbling" or "the stumbling block" (German: die
Gelegenheit Anstoss zu nehmen oder einen Fehltritt zu tun.) Bauer lists Rom
14:13 here, because of the addition of TIQENAI to bring out the sense "put a
stumbling block" before a brother. So BDAG suggests that if we move Rom 14:20
from sense 1 as suggested by Bauer to sense 2, then it may be easier to support
the English traditional interpretation.
Yours,
Iver Larsen
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