From: Rbsads@aol.com
Date: Mon Sep 17 2001 - 08:25:38 EDT
Lk 16.8a KAI EPHiNESEN O KURIOS TON OIKONOMON THS ADIKIAS
Lk 16.9b hEAUTOIS POIHSATE QILOUS EK TOU MAMWNA THS ADIKIAS
The genitive construction can be difficult at times, at least for me, to
render a suitable and confident interpretation. And this particular teaching
is hard enough without the difficulty of understanding how to read the
genitives and the prepositional phrase.
After some effort, with the help of Richard Young's Intermediate Grammar, I
think that I have come to understand and to accept that the genitive is
attributive and that the preposition expresses means. These interpretations
seem to make the most sense given the immediate and general context. And they
seem most consistent with the general sense of some different commentaries.
If the genitive is attributive then, why does the Greek use the genitive of
attribution rather that using a simple adjective? If the genitive in this
construction simply communicates an attribute of the manager and of wealth
then the most clear construction would seem to be an adjective.
Is possible that an adjective would describe a quality that might be
variable, such as blue car, a red car, describing a specific occurrence of a
thing; and that the attributive genitive would describe a quality that is
innate, even invariable, such as green grass, hard steel, describing a
general characteristic common to all occurrences of a thing?
Or perhaps the attributive genitive is merely a stylistic option of Greek
writers, perhaps it is a style preference of Luke?
The significance of my thinking is whether the attributive genitive intends
to describe mammon which is by nature unrighteous or mammon that is in a
particular circumstance unrighteous.
Or perhaps there is another way to interpret this genitive function.
And it is best to understand the preposition EK as expressing means. This is
how the NRSV translates?
Thanks,
Richard Smith
Chattanooga, TN
PS I have tried again to send this post plain text. If this post is received
in plain text, then I think my earlier problem was that I had copied from
other posts in my reply message. Please let me know how this is received.
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