Purpose:

The Paroikos Bible Blog exists as a resource to those interested in Biblical studies and Koine Greek. It is hoped that this blog will simultaneously provide food-for-thought to the reader while pointing him or her in the direction of valuable resources, both in print and on the internet, that will further help his or her studies in the Word.

Feb 17, 2011

The Granville Sharp rule: A defense of Daniel Wallace in light of Stanley Porter's review

In 2009, Daniel Wallace was finally able to publish his dissertation of some years ago under the title Granville Sharp’s Canon and its Kin: Semantics and Significance (Studies in Biblical Greek 14; New York: Peter Lang, 2009). While this particular work was slow in coming, Wallace has made clear his views on the Granville Sharp rule in other articles as well as his excellent Greek Grammar: Beyond the Basics.

In the latest volume of The Journal of the Evangelical Society 53:4 (December 2010), pp. 828-832, Stanley Porter has published a lengthy and mostly negative review. While I will be the first to acknowledge Porter’s brilliance as a linguistic, and while I also appreciate his overall moderate tone of critique, and while there is one area of Porter’s critique that I will agree with him on, nevertheless Porter has not himself adequately examined Granville Sharp’s Remarks on the Uses of the Definitive Article in the Greek Text of the New Testament and thus makes two statements, central to his critique of Wallace, that are inaccurate. It is my sincere desire that my essay here is not overly critical of Porter (and Porter himself always keeps a moderate tone in his discussions, one that I hope to emulate); ultimately my rhetoric is driven more by a desire to defend Wallace against what I feel is an unfair review than any desire to criticize Porter.

Before we begin, the reader should note that this discussion assumes a basic knowledge of Wallace’s position. Furthermore, this discussion revolves around Granville Sharp’s Remarks on the Uses of the Definitive Article in the Greek Text of the New Testament (3rd ed.; London: 1803). This work is available for free from Google Books; as of today, the proper link is http://books.google.com/books?id=e1oXAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=granville+sharp&hl=en&ei=gtdTYzZC8eCtge4naTiCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
In other words, the reader can easily verify for his or herself what Wallace, Porter, and I claim that Sharp is saying, Indeed, anyone who wishes to study out the issue is strongly encouraged to read Sharp’s work for themselves. Needless to say, any page numbers I refer to from Sharp’s work are the actual page numbers of the manuscript, not the pdf page numbers.

Also, the reader should note that we are concerned with Sharp’s rule #1 here, not necessarily with the other rules (though the other rules relate to the first rule; indeed, Sharp himself states, “the rules which follow are intended only to illustrate the particularity of the several sentences which fall under the first rule . . .” (Sharp, Remarks, 7).

To begin with, after citing Wallace’s articulation of Sharp’s rule, Porter claims that “Sharp does not address the question of plurals” (829, six lines from the top). This is inexplicable since a few lines down Porter discusses just how exactly Sharp does deal with plurals. Porter (829) cites Wallace who is citing Sharp (Sharp, Remarks, p. 6), where Sharp states “except the nouns be proper names, or in the plural number, in which case there are many exceptions.” This statement by Sharp is still under the heading of “Rule I.” Porter (review, 829) argues that Wallace neglects to add the following comment by Sharp that “there are not wanting examples, even of plural nouns, which are expressed exactly agreeable to this rule” (Sharp, 6). Yet in response to Porter, how does this disprove Wallace’s argument? How can it be any more clearer that Sharp does say that plural nouns are not part of the rule? Indeed: “except the nouns be proper names or in the plural number.” The fact that Sharp admits that some plural nouns act similar to the singular nouns here does not mean that the rule applies to plural nouns! (Porter himself omits one word of Sharp: “though”; in other words, what Sharp says is “though there are not wanting examples . . .” [Sharp, 6], which would seem to indicate that Sharp’s statement is almost an aside here). If I make the statement, “all land-based animals breathe air; there are no exceptions to this rule” and then follow this up with “however, some water-based animals (e.g. whales) also breathe air,” would it be legitimate to say that the rule is just as much about the former as it is about the latter (especially if the rule is a couple hundred words and the term “water-breathing” is only mentioned once?) Hardly! Indeed, in Sharp’s rule, the issue of plural nouns only occurs in one sentence (twice in two independent clauses in that sentence), and not a single one of his NT examples for his rule are plural constructions (Sharp, 4-5)

All Sharp is saying, as an aside, is that some plural nouns seem to follow the pattern. But the rule itself is strictly for singular personal nouns: this is apparent if we go back and read Sharp’s formulation of the rule on pages 3, which refers to “person” in the singular (“ . . . the latter always relates to the same person . . . i.e. it denotes a farther description of the first-named person”) Simply because Sharp casually observed that there are quite a few examples of plural nouns in TSKS constructions that refer to the same group does not change the fact that his rule refers to singular nouns; I cannot think of anyway Sharp himself could have made this clear other than his own statement on p. 6, “except the nouns be proper names, or in the plural number.” In the NT there are quite a few instances where plural nouns refer in a TSKS construction refer to different groups (e.g. Matthew 3:7), whereas with singular, personal nouns (not proper names), there are almost no exceptions (in fact, I believe in the NT no exceptions at all). The contrast between the two types of constructions (singular vs. plural) is striking, and both Wallace and Sharp have realized that.

More seriously, however, on page 829 of his review Porter makes the following statement: “Wallace further stresses that Sharp means that the substantives must have an ‘identical referent’ . . . however, that is not what the rule says. It is only when Sharp is discussing Christological significant examples that he uses such terms as ‘identity of person(s)’ (Sharp, Remarks 28, 30). Wallace seems to have a narrower view of the rule than did Sharp himself.”

In response to Porter, I urge the reader to consider the following statements by Sharp himself: 1. “When two personal nouns of the same case are connected by the copulative kai, if the former has the definitive article, and the latter has not, they both relate to the same person” (Sharp, Remarks xxxix, in the table of contents). 2. When the copulative kai . . . the latter always relates to the same person that is expressed or described by the first noun or participle: i.e. it denotes a farther description of the first-named person.” (Sharp, 3; this is the formulation of the rule proper). My own emphasis has been added in both cases. Now, please compare what Sharp says vs. what Porter says—“they both relate to the same person” and “always relates to the same person” vs. “[Wallace’s assertion that] the substantives must have an ‘identical referent’ . . . is not what the rule says.”

If Sharp states that both substantives refer to the same person (“both relate to the same person” is his exact statement), then does not that logically imply “an identical referent”? How can two words refer to the same person and yet not be said to have an identical referent? Thus we see that Wallace is correct and Porter has, unfortunately, misrepresented Sharp’s rule. The reader is advised not to take my word for it but to download their own free copy from Google Books and examine the evidence for themselves.

Thus, contra Porter, the following must be observed: 1. Sharp’s rule deals with plurals in that it  clearlyexcludes them and makes it clear that the rule is meant to apply to singular nouns, not plural nouns or proper names (even though, as an aside, Sharp mentions that some plural TSKS constructions do fit the pattern); and, more importantly, 2. Sharp’s rule is concerned with identical referents.

Another area that Porter is unfair to Wallace is when he accuses him of allowing Christological concerns to trump a proper understanding of Sharp’s rule (Porter, 831, last paragraph). Yet Sharp himself is the one who saw in “Rule #1” the means to prove the deity of Christ in Scripture. The reader is advised to note especially Sharp, Remarks, top of page 3 (last sentence before “Rule I”) and page 7 (before the heading “Rule II”). Although Sharp himself was concerned with the rule strictly in NT Greek and not Koine Greek in general, it is understandable why Sharp and Wallace would be excited about the rule; if it could be established that in TSKS constructions (article + substantive + kai+ substantive), when the construction is personal, singular, and not a proper name (which, as I have argued above, is obviously how Sharp qualified it; once again the reader is advised to read for themselves Sharp’s Remarks, pp. xxxix and 3-7), then the construction (at least in the NT) always refers to the same person (there are no exceptions to this in the New Testament, that I know of; this applies equally to theological and non-theological texts; in contrast, there are a significantly large number of plural and non-personal TSKS constructions  in the NT and in Koine that do not have the same referent). Since there are no exceptions in the NT, than naturally one could view this as a deliberate construction specifically used by a Greek writer or speaker to refer to the same person. Thus, when it applies to God [which is not a proper name] and Savior, where Jesus Christ is the referent of the latter, then one could naturally assume that He is also the referent of the former. This is strengthened if indeed the rule holds true in other Koine documents.

Obviously Porter himself believes in the deity of Christ or he would hardly be publishing in JETS! What Porter is objecting to (see Porter, pp. 831-832, the last paragraph of his review) is the way Wallace uses the Granville Sharp rule to attempt to prove Christ’s deity. What I am arguing here is that what Wallace is doing is being true to Sharp’s original observations, that Sharp himself thought that the rule could be used to prove Christ’s divinity simply because it was without exception in the NT (and Wallace and I would both add with very few exceptions in the vast scope of Koine literature).

Thus Sharp’s formulation of the rule, contra Porter, was not meant to be “a usable general principle . . . . that establishes that elements under a common article are related to each other, and in some circumstances are meant to be equated with each other” (Porter, 831-832, last sentence in the review). Once again, the reader should examine Sharp’s own words: in a TSKS construction with “two personal nouns of the same case . . . the latter always relates to the same person” [Sharp, Remarks, 3; emphasis added; notice the last two words: “same person”; this implies a singular, personal construction, not a plural or impersonal construction]. The reader will forgive my confusion if I wonder how we can go from Sharp’s statement to Porter’s significantly broader statement “elements under a common article are related to each other, and in some circumstance are meant to be equated with each other” (Porter, 832, last sentence).

I hope that at this point we have established what Sharp actually said. The question is, of course, was Sharp right? At this point we must argue out that no rule in any language is going to have perfect conformity within that language, and also that rules change overtime. Thus Porter is correct in taking Wallace to task for trying to hard to get rid certain exceptions to the rule (829-831). In a sense, Porter may be right that Wallace engages in “special pleading” (Porter, 829). Nevertheless, I ask the reader: if a particular construction acts a particular way in 99 percent of the time, do the 1 percent of exceptions invalidate any rule based on the 99 percent? In mathematics and science, no doubt, but I would argue not so in language.
For example, I can make the statement that in Japanese it is expected that an employee will address his boss with a certain type of verb ending (the honorific verb endings); thus a casual asou or souka (“is that so?”), when addressed to a superior, should take the honorific ending (asoudesuka or soudesuka?) The fact that exceptions exist to this rule (e.g. when one is drunk or when one is a foreigner learning still learning the language) does not invalidate that cultural and linguistic rule/principle/whatever you wish to call it!

Furthermore, I imagine that statistically the odds are too great that it is a coincidence that singular, personal TSKS constructions would act that way while plural and impersonal TSKS constructions are not even comparable in their behavior (in fact, my own unverified suspicion at this point is that TSKS constructions that are plural and/or impersonal most of the time do not have the same identity; at least from the LXX I can make a strong case for that, for now).

Ironically, Wallace’s dismissal of “translation Greek” (see Porter, 830, #(2)), deprives him of what I believe is a further prove of the general validity of Sharp’s rule #1. My own studies in the Septuagint have convinced me that Proverbs 24:21 is an anomaly—even the translators of the LXX treated TSKS constructions in the way that Sharp and Wallace outlined. The reader is advised to take the following singular, personal constructions—Ezra 7:21, Nehemiah 8:9, Isaiah 24:20, Tobit 1:22, I Esdras 8:8, 8:9, 9:39, 9:42, and 9:49, all referring to the same person—and contrast them with TSKS constructions that do not meet that criteria: (e.g. Exodus 9:3; Psalm 88 (89): 13; etc.). My research is fairly limited at this point, but everything I’ve seen indicate that even the translators of the LXX seemed to take the TSKS constructions in the same way that the NT and other documents in Koine Greek do. The odds are too high that the significant difference between singular and personal TSKS constructions and other TSKS constructions is coincidental.

While Wallace’s treatment of the topic is hardly perfect, and while I believe Porter is actually more moderate and gentler in the debate than Wallace is, nevertheless I believe Wallace has more accurately understood Sharp’s rule than Porter has, and that Sharp’s original articulation of the rule stands remarkably in Koine Greek. If Wallace’s thesis has any major fault, it lies in his attempt to argue away what may be valid exceptions to the rule, valid exceptions that are nevertheless a drop in the bucket of the vast amount of Koine TSKS constructions that were deliberately meant to indicate a single person under two headings or titles.

10 comments:

  1. In the Greek New Testament, we observe the singular personal article-noun-kai-noun configurations “THE Paul and Barnabas” in Acts 13:50 and “THE Christ and God” in Ephesians 5:5 and “THE God and Father” in 1 Corinthians 15:24.

    The logical conclusion to be drawn from that observation is that a singular personal article-noun-kai-noun configuration can, depending on the context, refer either to two persons, as in the phrase “THE Paul and Barnabas” in Acts 13:50 and in the phrase “THE Christ and God” in Ephesians 5:5, or to one person, as in the phrase “THE God and Father” in 1 Corinthians 15:24.

    Two singular personal non-proper nouns (not proper names) referring to two persons can be expressed either as one idea (article-noun-kai-noun) or as two ideas (article-noun-kai-article-noun) or as neither one idea nor two ideas (noun-kai-noun).

    1. THE Christ and God (two persons / one idea / Ephesians 5:5)
    2. THE Father and THE Son (two persons / two ideas / 1 John 2:22)
    3. man and woman (two persons / neither one idea nor two ideas / Jeremiah 28:22 in the LXX [51:22 in the Masoretic Text])

    Two singular personal non-proper nouns referring to one person can be expressed either as one idea (article-noun-kai-noun) or as two ideas (article-noun-kai-article-noun) or as neither one idea nor two ideas (noun-kai-noun).

    4. THE God and Father (one person / one idea / 1 Corinthians 15:24)
    5. THE Lord and THE Teacher (one person / two ideas / John 13:14)
    6. servant and apostle (one person / neither one idea nor two ideas / 2 Peter 1:1)

    The same two singular personal proper names referring to the same two persons can be expressed either as one idea (article-noun-kai-noun) or as two ideas (article-noun-kai-article-noun) or as neither one idea nor two ideas (noun-kai-noun).

    7. THE Paul and Barnabas (two persons / one idea / Acts 13:50)
    8. THE Paul and THE Barnabas (two persons / two ideas / Acts 13:43)
    9. Paul and Barnabas (two persons / neither one idea nor two ideas / Acts 15:35)

    The nine examples above prove that the article configuration has nothing to do with whether the two singular personal nouns refer to two persons or to one person, because all three article configurations are used, regardless of whether the referent is two persons or one person, and regardless of whether the nouns are non-proper nouns or proper names.

    English grammar is based on Greek grammar. That is why we see the same thing in English.

    In English, as in Greek, two singular personal nouns referring to two persons can be expressed as one idea (THE man and woman) or as two ideas (THE man and THE woman) or as neither one idea nor two ideas (man and woman).

    Likewise, in English, as in Greek, two singular personal nouns referring to one person can be expressed as one idea (THE husband and father) or as two ideas (THE husband and THE father) or as neither one idea nor two ideas (husband and father).

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for your interaction on this topic. In the future, please limit your comments to one or two moderate-sized posts; adding six consecutive posts is a bit excessive. If you feel that strongly on the topic, please create your own blog, and then you are more than welcome to link to your own blog in your comments here on my blog.

      I have responded below. You are more than welcome to submit one more post (just one, please! I don’t want to spend the rest of the year on this debate) as a rejoinder, at which point I will post a sur-rejoinder, and then the discussion will be over for now.

      Delete
  2. The context (Ephesians 5:1-6) indicates that the phrase “THE Christ and God” in Ephesians 5:5 refers to two persons (the Son and Father).

    Ephesians 5:1 you-must-become … imitators OF-THE GOD … 2 … you-must-walk in love according-as also THE CHRIST he-loved us and he-gave himself on-behalf-of us offering and sacrifice TO-THE GOD … 5 … every fornicator or unclean-one or coveter … not he-has inheritance in the kingdom OF-THE CHRIST and GOD. 6 … because-of these-things … it-comes, the wrath OF-THE GOD …

    The unusual sequence (the Christ and God instead of the God and Christ) in the phrase “the kingdom OF-THE Christ and God” in Ephesians 5:5 is further evidence that Paul is referring to two persons (the Son and Father), because that sequence is consistent with Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 15:22-28 that the Son (Christ) will reign over the kingdom until he gives the kingdom to the Father (God).

    1 Corinthians 15:22 … in THE CHRIST all-ones they-will-be-made-alive. 23 each-one, But, in the own order. First-fruit, CHRIST. Afterward, the-ones OF-THE CHRIST in the coming of-him. 24 AFTERWARD, the end, whenever HE-WOULD-GIVE-OVER the kingdom TO-THE GOD and FATHER … 25 it-is-necessary, For, HIM TO-REIGN UNTIL which HE-WOULD-PLACE all the enemies under the feet of-him … 28 whenever, But, it-would-be-subordinated TO-HIM, the-things all, at-that-time also HIMSELF THE SON he-will-be-subordinated TO-THE-ONE HAVING-SUBORDINATED to-him the-things all, that he-would-be, THE GOD, the-things all in all-things.

    As shown above, the fact that the phrase “THE Christ and God” in Ephesians 5:5 refers to two persons (the Son and Father) expressed as one idea (article-noun-kai-noun) is not an opinion, but a contextual fact.

    Dr. A. T. Robertson and Dr. Daniel Wallace, two of the most vocal proponents of Sharp’s Rule, admit that it is contextually clear that the phrase “THE Christ and God” in Ephesians 5:5 refers to two persons (the Son and Father).

    However, Dr. Robertson and Dr. Wallace refuse to admit that the nouns “Christ” and “God” are two non-proper nouns, because that would be an admission that the phrase “THE Christ and God” in Ephesians 5:5 was a singular personal non-proper article-noun-kai-noun configuration that referred to two persons (the Son and Father), which would be an admission that Sharp’s Rule (the belief that a singular personal non-proper article-noun-kai-noun configuration cannot refer to two persons) was false, which Dr. Robertson and Dr. Wallace are unwilling to admit.

    Therefore, Dr. Robertson claims that the noun “God” in the phrase “THE Christ and God’ in Ephesians 5:5 is a proper name due to the fact that the noun “God” is often not preceded by an article in the Greek New Testament, even though Dr. Robertson insists that the noun “Savior” in the phrases “THE great God and Savior of-us Jesus Christ” in Titus 2:13 and “THE God of-us and Savior Jesus Christ” in 2 Peter 1:1 is NOT a proper name, despite the fact that the noun “Savior” is not preceded by an article in the Greek New Testament proportionately more often than the noun “God” is.

    Similarly, Dr. Wallace claims that the noun “Christ” in the phrase “THE Christ and God’ in Ephesians 5:5 is a proper name due to the fact that the noun “Christ” is often not preceded by an article in the nominative case in the Greek New Testament, even though Dr. Wallace insists that the noun “Savior” in Titus 2:13 and in 2 Peter 1:1 is NOT a proper name, despite the fact that the noun “Savior” is not preceded by an article in the nominative case in the Greek New Testament proportionately more often than the noun “Christ” is, and despite the fact that the noun “Savior,” like the noun “Christ,” is never written in the plural forum in the Greek New Testament.

    As shown above, the DENIAL of Dr. Robertson and Dr. Wallace that the phrase “THE Christ and God” in Ephesians 5:5 is a singular personal NON-PROPER article-noun-kai-noun configuration that refers to TWO persons (the Son and Father is based, NOT on the actual facts, but on their pro-Sharp’s-Rule bias.

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  3. Further, in addition to what has been said above, in Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians, the nouns “Christ” and “God” and “Lord” are always preceded by an article in the nominative case, whereas the noun “Savior” is not preceded by an article in the nominative case.

    Also, Dr. Wallace says that the noun “Christ” is a proper name because it is never written in the plural form in the Greek New Testament, but that the noun “Savior” is not a proper name, even though the noun “Savior,” like the noun “Christ,” is never written in the plural form in the Greek New Testament.

    Therefore, Dr. Wallace’s claim that the noun “Christ” is a proper name, but that the noun “Savior” is not a proper name, has nothing to do with the actual facts, but everything to do with his own unwillingness to admit that the phrase “THE Christ and God” in Ephesians 5:5 is a singular personal NON-PROPER article-noun-kai-noun configuration that refers to TWO persons (the Son and Father), and that it is therefore proof that Sharp’s Rule (the belief that a singular personal non-proper article-noun-kai-noun configuration cannot refer to two persons) is false.

    In chapter 12 in book 3 in Paedagogus (Instructor), Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD) writes the phrase “the only Father and Son.”

    Dr. Wallace claims that Clement writes the phrase “the only Father and Son” because he is a modalist (someone that believes that the Father, Son and Spirit are one [the same] person).

    However, in chapter 2 in book 1 in Paedagogus, Clement writes, “our Instructor is like His Father God, whose son He is, sinless, blameless, and with a soul devoid of passion, God in the form of man, stainless, the minister of His Father's will, the Word who is God, who is in the Father, who is at the Father's right hand, and with the form of God is God.”

    Those are not the words of someone that believes that the Father and Son are one (the same) person. Clement appears to be no more a modalist than Paul is.

    The phrase “the only Father and Son” in chapter 12 in book 3 in Paedagogus, like the phrase “the great God and Savior of-us Jesus Christ” in Titus 2:13, is an article-adjective-noun-kai-noun configuration.

    When an attributive adjective is used in the first attributive position (article-adjective-noun) to modify two subsequent nouns (article-adjective-noun-kai-noun), it agrees in case, number and gender (all three) with the first subsequent noun.

    The two nouns can be any two nouns. They do not have to refer to one (the same) person.

    Dr. Herbert Smyth discusses this in section 1030 in his 1920 book, A Greek Grammar for Colleges (the words in [brackets] are added by me for clarification).

    1030. An attributive adjective belonging to more than one substantive agrees with the nearest … τὸν καλὸν κἀγαθὸν ἄνδρα καὶ γυναῖκα [THE beautiful and-good MAN and WOMAN] … P. G. [Plato, Gorgias] 470e.

    http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.9:6:22:0.NewPerseusMonographs

    We see an article-adjective-noun-kai-noun configuration used by Plato in Gorgias (470e) and by Paul in Titus (2:13) and by Clement in Paedagogus (book 3, chapter 12).

    THE beautiful and-good MAN and WOMAN
    THE great GOD and SAVIOR of-us Jesus Christ
    THE only FATHER and SON

    The singular personal article-adjective-noun-kai-noun configuration expresses two persons as one idea in each of those three instances.

    It is contextually clear that the phrase “from God Father and Christ Jesus the Savior of-us” in Titus 1:4 and the phrase “of-the great God and Savior of-us Jesus Christ” in Titus 2:13 are synonymous references to the Father and Son.

    The fact that Paul consistently uses the noun “God” in reference to the Father (not in reference to the Son) throughout his epistles (including Ephesians 5:5 and Titus 2:13) is indicated in 1 Corinthians 8:6, where Paul says, “But to-us, ONE GOD, THE FATHER, out-of whom the-things all, and we into/unto him, and ONE LORD, JESUS CHRIST, through whom the-things all, and we through him.”

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  4. Further still, when discussing the phrase “THE God and Savior of-us Jesus Christ” in Titus 2:13, which Dr. Wallace WANTS to be a singular personal NON-PROPER article-noun-kai-noun configuration, Dr. Wallace says that if the FIRST noun (God) in that phrase is a PROPER NAME, then it CERTAINLY DOES NOT prevent that phrase from being a singular personal NON-PROPER article-noun-kai-noun configuration, because a PROPER NAME prevents a phrase from being a singular personal NON-PROPER article-noun-kai-noun configuration ONLY when the PROPER NAME is the SECOND noun.

    In contrast, when discussing the phrase “THE Christ and God” in Ephesians 5:5, which Dr. Wallace DOES NOT WANT to be a singular personal NON-PROPER article-noun-kai-noun configuration, Dr. Wallace REVERSES himself and says that if the FIRST noun (Christ) in that phrase is a PROPER NAME, then it MAY prevent that phrase from being a singular personal NON-PROPER article-noun-kai-noun configuration.

    Dr. Wallace employs double standards in order to reach the conclusion that he wants to reach.

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  5. In the article, I didn’t see a link to the Porter review of the Wallace book being discussed. Therefore, here it is.

    http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/53/53-4/JETS_53-4_801-870_BookReviews.pdf

    I tried adding the #page=828 suffix to the link to automatically link to page 828, but it didn’t work. Therefore, you will have to manually scroll down to page 828.

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  6. As you may already know, clicking the link in the immediately preceding comment doesn't lead anywhere. Therefore, you will have to copy the link address and paste it into the browser address window and click the refresh symbol at the right end of that window in order to go to that review.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for your interaction on this topic. In the future, please limit your comments to one or two moderate-sized posts; adding six consecutive posts is a bit excessive. If you feel that strongly on the topic, please create your own blog, and then you are more than welcome to link to your own blog in your comments here on my blog.

      I have responded below. You are more than welcome to submit one more post (just one, please! I don’t want to spend the rest of the year on this debate) as a rejoinder, at which point I will post a sur-rejoinder, and then the discussion will be over for now.

      Delete
  7. Thank you for your contribution to this discussion. Here is my response (you are welcome to offer one more post as a rejoinder):
    1. First of all, my original blog post is concerned with the interaction of Wallace and Porter, especially regarding what Granville Sharp actually said, rather than a defense of everything Wallace says. Since Granville Sharp’s book is available for free on google-books (and I link to it in my post),everybody is able to read it and compare the claims of Porter and Wallace. Regardless of who is more correct on this issue of Greek grammar, I believe Wallace better represents what Sharp actually said.
    2. Secondly, I am concerned here with broad language patterns in 1st century Greek, especially Koine and the NT. As such, I am willing to allow exceptions (whether or not Wallace is). All I am saying is that identical referent in personal, singular TSKS constructions (not involving proper names) is the norm in Koine Greek. Citing one or two potential exceptions does not change what would be, in the minds of 1st century Greek speakers and writers, the normal understanding of such a TSKS constructions. While the weakness of Wallace’s thesis is that he doesn’t allow for exceptions, the strength is that he searched out pretty much all the TSKS constructions he could find and catalogued them. If, then, 99% or even 90% of all personal, singular, TSKS constructions that are not proper names point to a single referent, I believe we have an indication of general usage that is more than a statistical anomaly, regardless of whether or not there are exceptions.
    3. Thirdly, since we are concerned here with broad language patterns in 1st century Koine Greek, I view any evidence from Plato as irrelevant (and 2nd century usage as only partly relevant). Language changes over time (just compare English now with Shakespeare’s time!) and what may be a rule in the 1st century AD may or may not have been a rule in classical times or anywhere else.
    4. Your statement that “English grammar is based on Greek Grammar” is both inaccurate and irrelevant. English grammar is radically different from Greek grammar, and is descended from Germanic languages, not Greek. In fact, English grammar is even closer to Japanese grammar than it is to Greek, in that they both use word order and much simpler tense system in their sentences (I grew up in Japan, speaking Japanese, so I know what I’m talking about here). Even if English grammar were based off of Greek grammar, however, we are talking of centuries between our time and the Apostle Paul's time; language changes too much over centuries for current usage to be a relevant guide to usage 2,000 years ago.
    5. Your comments on Ephesians 5:5 and its context is the strongest point of your argument (though next time you refer to what Wallace and/or Robertson claim, provide page numbers so this can be verified). It may be that this is a clear exception to Sharp’s rule (I would prefer to see both of the nouns as non-proper). Nevertheless, one exception to the norm in one verse in the NT is not enough to dismiss a clear pattern of Koine usage, in my opinion. Yet conversely, the context for Titus 2:13 clearly indicates a single referent (regardless of whether or not God and Savior are proper names or not) because it is Jesus himself who physical appearing, not the Father. However, I am open to the possibility that the Apostle Paul, though divinely inspired, was himself not totally consistent when dealing with grammatical representations of one or more members of the Trinity.
    6. In conclusion: I am not concerned with whether or not all of Wallace’s arguments are correct. I am mostly concerned with 1. The broader pattern of TSKS usage within 1st century Greek (and, possibly, the Seputagint; I’m still looking into that), and 2. Who represents Granville Sharp better, Porter or Wallace?

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  8. Hi Dr. Himes,

    My one response, which is 7000 words long, can be read at the following Internet address:

    http://responseregardingsharpsrule.blogspot.com/

    yt

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