Conrad on the subjective/objective genitive

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C. S. Bartholomew
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Conrad on the subjective/objective genitive

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

This discussion has been going on for years and years. It might be traced back as far as the late 90s when the grammar by D. Wallace of DTS was being adopted as a text book in many seminaries in north america. Wallace's treatment of the case system and particularly the genitive case had become a topic of discussion.

a more recent thread 2013:

the entire thread of 65 posts can be found here: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/vie ... =11&t=2130
Forget about "subjective" and "objective" descriptors here -- they are neither needed nor helpful; in fact they only serve to obfuscate;
... while the terms "subjective genitive" and "objective genitive" make a little bit of sense when we're clearly dealing with a verbal noun and can relate the other noun to the verbal noun in terms of a subject or an object of the verb, the fact is that what is meant by a "verbal noun" is relatively fuzzy, and ultimately the terms "subjective genitive" and "objective genitive" don't enable you to understand the expression but simply to put a label on it. If the label doesn't contribute to understanding the construction, it's not worth much, if it's worth anything at all. The simple truth is that an adnominal genitive is nothing more than a linkage between two nouns; it conveys no semantic information regarding what specific linkage is to be inferred between the two nouns. What the linkage is has to be guessed from context or intuited, not so very differently from the inference, as Hume put it, from "custom and habit of confident expectation" that the sun will rise tomorrow morning.
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Re: Conrad on the subjective/objective genitive

Post by mwh »

Thanks Stirling. I was blessedly unaware of controversy over this among NT folks, but I know that everything is controversial with them. I’ve looked at the first of the linked 65 posts, by our own Andrew Chapman, correctly pointing out that in ὁ βασιλευς Ἰσραηλ we have an objective genitive not a subjective one. I’m betting I wouldn’t learn anything about Greek by reading the remaining 64.

As to the quotes you provide, I don’t see anything much to disagree with. The first one, however, with its qualifying “here,” doesn’t have enough context to judge. In my experience the terms do not serve to obfuscate, but it might well be so in the particular instance referred to, or indeed routinely on the Bible forums, which I avoid like the plague.

The second, except perhaps for the unsupported “ultimately” bit, ought to be uncontroversial, despite its tendentiousness and my automatic distrust of people who say things like “the fact is that …” or “The simple truth is that …”.

The terms are meaningful, as the quote grudgingly acknowledges. The question is whether they are useful or necessary. Normally not, I'd say, despite their linguistic validity. An instance of subjective genitive was identified as such in the Ajax thread on the Learning Greek board, you’ll remember—I'm guessing that's what precipitated your post here—, but that was only for the sake of clarifying the relationship of the genitive to the noun it accompanied, an unequivocal verbal noun. So I’d say that the labels can occasionally “contribute to understanding the construction,” as your quote puts it.

Michael

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Re: Conrad on the subjective/objective genitive

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Well, I don't remember what Dr. Conrad said (isn't he still in B-Greek?) but I remember my pastor going into this quite a bit when exegeting 'Love of God' and 'Love of Christ' passages.

He was a classical guy, trained in the DTS 1930's theology of that day (now dead). So I'm sure he repeated the catechism for the time:

* only pick one
* plenary allows you to pick but one but have the effect of two.

But I'm finding something different: SEQUENCE. In other words, ALL THREE are in view, but in a given SEQUENCE. So test the meaning with varying sequences, and other witticisms of the verse or context come to the fore:
Because it's Love belonging to God ('God's Love')
we learn to love Him with His Own Love (HS enables of course, it's a spiritual stage aka come to know the Love For Christ),
and therefore complete the Love Circle (plenary).

Really profound, when you think about it. So I hope that idea justifies my bumping this thread.

C. S. Bartholomew
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Re: Conrad on the subjective/objective genitive

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brainout wrote:Well, I don't remember what Dr. Conrad said (isn't he still in B-Greek?) but I remember my pastor going into this quite a bit when exegeting 'Love of God' and 'Love of Christ' passages.

He was a classical guy, trained in the DTS 1930's theology of that day (now dead). So I'm sure he repeated the catechism for the time:

* only pick one
* plenary allows you to pick but one but have the effect of two.
Your speaking in a different register which might cause confusion on this forum. The expression: "classical guy, trained in the DTS 1930's theology of that day" appears to mean "old school" approach to NT Greek taught at DTS (Dallas Theological Seminary). What does this have to do with theology? I can see a certain connection, verbal-plenary-inspiration (theology of the text of scripture, aka Bibliology) was in some schools associated with a certain sort exegetical method employing the original languages. But this connection, if it existed, was tenuous and localized to certain schools. I suspect that mid-20th century DTS wasn't doing exegesis of greek in same manner as WTS (Philadelphia), but I am no historian. I suspect they were both using Machen and perhaps Dana & Manty, A.T. Robertson.
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Re: Conrad on the subjective/objective genitive

Post by brainout »

What I mean by 'classical' with reference to theology, was the standard theological teachings of the 1930's, as well as the standard Greek language teachings of the 1930's.

So it's both. There were common terms not much used now, like Codex I II III for the OT Mosaic Law, 'definite article' rather than 'article', 'waw' instead of 'vav' -- a whole generation of differences and approaches which today might be out of favor. Was just trying to explain how I got what I said about subj/obj/plenary genitive.

Hope this answer helps.

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Re: Conrad on the subjective/objective genitive

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brainout wrote:What I mean by 'classical' with reference to theology, was the standard theological teachings of the 1930's, as well as the standard Greek language teachings of the 1930's.
Yeah, that's clear now. I'm kind surprised you were taught by someone who was at DTS in the 1930's. That was the L.S. Chafer era. I have no knowledge of what was being taught then in relation to Greek exegesis.

My college mentor[1] was at DTS 1958-62, room mate with Hal Lindsey, they both took Jimmy Williams (founder, Probe Ministries) under-their-wings. Williams told me this in two hour phone call. My not-mentor in seminary was at DTS same era, he was hebrew scholar who did a ThD under Waltke. I have never been to Texas. The school I attended was very west coast and Not-DTS. My reading of the exegetical work done by students and profs would place them solidly in the evangelical exegetical tradition of the 1970s. Nothing old fashion about it. The most popular NT guy was F. F. Bruce. The older ICC works by people like Sandy/Hedlam, A. Plummer were used a lot.

Decades later Wallace at DTS published his GGBB which was the reductio ad absurdum for the traditional treatment of the Greek Case system. His treatment of the genitive was instrumental in causing some of us to wonder if the whole approach was wrong. There are linguists who use GGBB to teach greek. I will not name names.

The question that lingers: Why do we need semantic categories to define the syntax of the Greek genitive? Some people see a pedagogical benefit achieved by sorting genitives into groups based on the semantic situation. Students are required to attain proficiency in identify these groups. Others wonder if this whole exercise leads to a misunderstanding about how the case actually functions. The long term benefit of memorizing the categories is weighed against the risk of habitually fussing over distinctions between this or that category, a futile exercise since the categories are a convention of Classical Philology and have no actual referent in the language itself.

This old fashion treatment of the Greek Case system is an artifact of Classical Philology. All the NT and LXX Scholars of yesteryear were trained in Classical Greek first, Henry Alford, H. A. W. Meyer, H. B. Swete.

Historically UBS and SIL have been agents of change, introducing "modern linguistics" into greek exegesis. However, I haven't run across many recommendations suggesting a different analysis of the case functions. Finding something like this is made difficult by the volume of the publications.


Case Agreement in Ancient Greek: implications for a theory of covert elements... Chet Creider
ftp://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/pub/Word-Grammar/greek.pdf

Case alterations in Ancient Greek passives and the typology of Case.
Christina Sevdali
https://www.academia.edu/12643684/Case_ ... o=download

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[1]Did his internship at Peninsula Bible Church, under Ray Stedman. Decades later became the father in law to a certain infamous mega-church pastor from Seattle. (google that string) :|

POSTSCRIPT: Having attended a school like mid-20th century DTS has remarkably different impact on different students. Some students violently reject the framework, examples Robert Wall, Gregory Beale. Others become life long defenders of what they learned in seminary. I spent most of the summer of '68 in Goetera El Salvador with guy who studied at Mutlnomah. It was Walboord and Pentecost ... he was pre-Hal Lindsey. My college mentor passed through DTS unscathed. He wasn't even interested in eschatology. His whole approach to life was radically out of phase with DTS. The social gospel of Martin Luther King combined with an orthodox theology. He didn't do greek exegesis. He told his young men to avoid the languages, waste of time.
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Re: Conrad on the subjective/objective genitive

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Fascinating; when I say 1930's, yeah Chafer; though not actually ATTENDING during that time, but definitely before 1950: cuz (drum roll please), Lindsey considers my (now dead) pastor R.B. Thieme Jr. as his mentor. So then now the ID is complete. And yeah, I read Wall's doctoral thesis, since it was about Theime.

As for the debate and the 'schools' of thought re cases, well.. it was often taught as parallel to the Latin cases, which in my case was useful, as I learned Latin first. Categorization is a preference. I don't always agree with Wallace, but it doesn't matter if I agree. It only matters if the material is useful, which of course it is.

I'm not trying to sell the man, but he is my right teacher, and I'll just stop talking further about it. I mention all this because the PRINCIPLE of poimen kai didaskolos is vital to learning (Eph41216.htm explains more, but requires Bibleworks fonts to read it; I don't have those Greek fonts yet on this computer).

Back to the topic of subj/obj, I love how the thread opens. BIG DEBATE as if all Scripture hung in the balance. Well, yeah kinda. Love Circle seems pretty important. :D
Last edited by brainout on Tue Jul 05, 2016 9:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

C. S. Bartholomew
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Re: Conrad on the subjective/objective genitive

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

Here is good thesis to read, not specifically about CASE but it does treat semantic roles in a systematic fashion and the ideas are directly applicable to Case analysis. Note particularly her citations from Comrie on p84ff.
The Exegesis and Translation of
PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES
in the Greek New Testament:
A Semantic Role Analysis


Pamela Margaret Bendor-Samuel B.A.

A thesis submitted to the Open University
in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Philosophy.
(Linguistic and Biblical Studies)

Oxford Centre for Mission Studies
April, 1996.
http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-foru ... 23&t=64452
see: SURVEY OF SEMANTIC ROLES page 83-115
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Re: Conrad on the subjective/objective genitive

Post by brainout »

Thank you!

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