Epexegetical Genitive in Philippians 2:6-7

Actually, Jason, we did discuss this question here:

http://discourse.textkit.com/t/what-kind-of-genitives-are-these/11909/1

On that thread, I wrote:

I can’t see how these can be technically epexegetical genitives since “assuming a form, that is, a servant” makes no more sense in Greek than it does in English.

On a side note, Stephen Hughes recently suggested on B-Greek a new (new, at least, to me) way to understand genitives. You pretend that the genitive case does not exist, and you replace the genitive phrase with a relative clause in which you use a verb that is implicit in the relationship between the two nouns. Thus

ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ

can be paraphrased as

ἐν μορφῇ ἣ ὁμοιάζει τῷ θεῷ

or

ἐν μορφῇ ἣν ὁ θεὸς πάρειχε.


In my opinion, this is a better approach than trying to categorize genitives with English meta-language terms. A true epexegetical genitive, i.e. Rom 4:11

καὶ σημεῖον ἔλαβεν περιτομῆς

would be paraphrased

καὶ ἔλαβεν σημεῖον ὅ ἐστιν ἡ περιτομή.