2 Thess 2:7

[Dunedain]

Could anyone tell me who [face=spionic]ge/nhtai[/face] is refering to? More importantly, how you know.

[klewlis]

It has to be the "man of lawlessness" in verse 3. Those verses are talking about how this person is being restrained and then that he will continue to be restrained until he is taken out of the way.

Without the context the greek is ambiguous, but the context makes it pretty clear.

[Dunedain]

Thanks for the reply klewlis. I've only studied Greek eclectically, when my attention is drawn to a certain subject. Recently it was drawn to this passage. In my research I've come across a number of exegetical works which state what you have stated. The reason being given is that the verb is transitive to the subject of the passage, ie the lawless.

But there is never given an actual criteria for determining how to identify such a transitive verb. I have downloaded all of the Greek grammars a good while ago and cannot find any reference to this particular subject.

Would you, or anyone, be able to tell me if this is true; and, if so, how you have recognized this as a transitive?

[swiftnicholas]

Rodney Decker's diagram of this section might be helpful:

http://faculty.bbc.edu/rdecker/documents/2th2_1d.pdf

Dana and Mantey talk about identifying transitive and intransitive verbs in Section 151 of "A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament."

It seems to me that because the use of the middle voice refers the outcome of the action back to the subject, it might help to indicate transitiveness. Is that accurate?