Greek: πιστὸς ὁ θεός, δι’ οὗ ἐκλήθητε εἰς κοινωνίαν τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν. Παρακαλῶ δὲ ὑμᾶς, ἀδελφοί, διὰ τοῦ ὀνόματος τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἵνα τὸ αὐτὸ λέγητε πάντες καὶ μὴ ᾖ ἐν ὑμῖν σχίσματα, ἦτε δὲ κατηρτισμένοι ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ νοῒ καὶ ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ γνώμῃ. (NA28)
Notice how the apostle writes here. At first, the syntax is Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν, then τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ in v. 10. What is the significance of this contrasting word order?
Firstly, let's review what Joseph Fitzmyer's Anchor Bible Commentary (p. 134) states regarding 1 Cor. 1:9:
through whom you have been called into companionship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. The prep. dia denotes the source, not the mediation, of assurance that comes from God (BDR §223.3). Soards (1 Cor, 30), however, strangely understands di’ hou, “through whom,” to refer “to the Lord Jesus Christ through whom God acts in relation to humanity.” That might be a good Pauline idea, but that is not what the text says. The rel. pronoun in the prep. phrase di’ hou has God as its antecedent, and the relation to Christ is expressed by eis koinonian. Rather than di’ hou, mss D, F, G, read rather hyph’ hou, “by whom,” followed by the RSV.
I think Fitzmyer somewhat misunderstands Marion Soards' point. Quite frankly, he does not claim that "through whom" (δι’ οὗ) refers to Christ in 1 Cor. 1:19. His exact words are:
The NIV obscures both Paul’s pattern of speech and the essence of his thought. The loss of precision in language is unfortunate, for Paul’s statement contains the unusual idea that God is the agent through whom the Corinthians were called. In every other instance that Paul uses the phrase “through whom” (Gk. di’ hou), he is referring to the Lord Jesus Christ as the one through whom God acts in relation to humanity—cf. Rom. 1:5; 5:2, 11; 1 Cor. 8:6; Gal. 6:14 (this last reference is ambiguous and may mean “through which” in reference to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ).
[END QUOTE]
So when read in context, it becomes clear that Soards is not asserting that "through whom" refers to Jesus in 1 Cor. 1:9. Rather, Soards is talking about other verses where such language is used.
The question still remains as to why Paul uses the syntax of vss. 9-10. It seems to me that the syntax is used for rhetorical effect and it illustrates different ways that Christ could be referenced by 1st century writers, namely, as "Jesus Christ our Lord" or "our Lord Jesus Christ."
12 comments:
http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/vee/v30n2/01.pdf
Thanks, Duncan. I found the article to be interesting and helpful although it covered the first nine verses of 1 Corinthians, but not verse 10. That was outside the article's proposed scope. Nevertheless, the point made about 1 Cor. 1:7-9 was good:
"The clause tou ` kurivou hJmw `n jIhsou ` Cristou ` is repeated
at the end of verses 7, 8 and 9 in an emphatic position. It
serves to highlight that everything God is doing for the
Corinthians is done in/through Jesus Christ."
However, in 1 Cor. 1:10, I find the syntactical order somewhat inverted.
Most commentary I have found seems to break off at the same point - 1 to 9. 9 & 10 do not seem to be addressed together.
I'm not going to be dogmatic about where the first section ends, but it seems that the order is possibly inverted in verse 10. At the very least, a point is made about style.
Here's other links:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1476993X14549918?journalCode=cbib
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1560491?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
http://bible.ovu.edu/terry/dissertation/b-greek.htm
I do not know where it ends, I am only pointing out that most commentators seem to divide there commentaries at the end of verse 9 so they do not seem to broach the issue.
Many of the tables in the first paper (Malcolm) state 1.1-9 as a break point.
Page 156 on second paper.
Amplification may be the function of verse 10 - but of what?
You're right that most commentators see a break at 1 Cor. 1:9. At this link, http://bible.ovu.edu/terry/dissertation/b-greek.htm
we read that 1 Cor. 1:10 is hortatory. If it's an instance of amplification, then it supplements (expands on) what goes before it, that is, 1 Cor. 1:1-9.
But regardless of where the first section ends, there's still a syntactical difference between Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν and τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ
Furthermore, one part ends the same way that the other began (possible antimetabole).
One thing that seems a little odd is that in translation:-
https://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/1-1.htm
Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ
The word order and its translation - they cannot all be correct surely?
V9 & V10 is less ambiguous in translation although some insert the comma after lord which would be in keeping with "our lord".
Obviously the word order Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ does not reverse in the v9 & v10 instances.
1 Corinthians 1:1 is a manuscript issue. Should one read Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ or Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. So that is not purely a translational issue.
Granted, Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ does not reverse in vss. 9-10, but I still believe there's a reason why v. 10 has τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ instead of Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν.
More on rhetoric: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/489744?mobileUi=0&
This combined with the variant at v8 is interesting- Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ vs Ἰησοῦ. It would be interesting to if manuscripts carry both?
See this monster work: http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2012/06/jeff-klohas-work-on-1-corinthians.html
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