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Preface Introduction Chapters Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Appendices Appendix I Appendix II Appendix III Appendix IV Appendix V Appendix VI Appendix VII Appendix VIII Appendix IX Appendix X Appendix XI Appendix XII Appendix XIII Appendix XIV Appendix XV Appendix XVI Appendix XVII Appendix XVIII Appendix XIX Appendix XX Appendix XXI Indexes References Names Biblical References General Bibliography |
APPENDIX XIX(Reference: p.93) Meaning of
in the New
Testament. It is, of course, hardly necessary
to say that a noun formed from a verb need not have the
same basic meaning and that therefore the verb cannot be used to prove
anything about the meaning of the noun. In the New Testament there
is a recurrent phrase, "the foundation of the world", which
many writers, who view Gen. 1.2 as a description of catastrophe, take to be
an allusion. On the basis of the
verbal root
they argue
(as I myself have done) that the noun means
"disruption", since the verb means "to cast down". Origen equated the verbal root of
with the Latin dejicere, "to throw down". In this he is essentially correct. And in the LXX the verb is similarly used
to substitute for the following Hebrew words, all of which are
essentially similar in meaning;
(Haras) to tear down, breakdown,
devastate, over- throw, destroy, extirpate.
(Laqah) to take, lay hold of,
seize, snatch away, cap- tivate .
(Natash) to stretch or spread out,
scatter abroad, re- ject, let loose, disperse,
give up.
(Naphal) to fall, fall away, fall
out, fail, hurl down, cast down, fall upon
(attack).
(Nathatz) to break down, destroy,
smash down.
(Paratz) to break, demolish,
scatter, breakup, spread abroad.
(Satam) to lurk for, way-lay,
entrap.
(Shahath) to break to pieces,
destroy, ruin, lay waste, devastate, violate,
injure, corrupt.
(Shaphel) to fall or sink down, to be
laid low, humiliate, humble. This clearly establishes
the meaning of the verb, but what of the noun formulated from
it? In classical Greek it came to
have the basic meaning of
"foundation" as signifying what has been cast down or thrown down first. It is never found with the meaning of
des- truction or disruption. In
II Macc. 2.29 the noun occurs in a context which indicates that the
classical sense of "foundation" is intended here also. In the New Testament there
is little doubt that the verbal form has the classical meaning
of "casting down" or "casting out", as in II Cor.4. 9 and Rev. 12.10
for example, or "giving birth to" in Heb. 11.11, ie.,
"founding" a new line. On the basis of Heb. 6.1 which reads, "Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine
of Christ, let us go on unto perfection, not laying again the
foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God",
the learned commentator Olshausen argues that we must assume the word is
here being used in its most fundamental sense of "casting
down", and so of demolishing or destroying. "For", he argues, "the
apostle would assuredly not have dissuaded men from laying again the
foundation of repentance, in the case of its having been destroyed". In this passage, moreover, the word for "foundation" is not
as it
might have been in classical Greek, but
(the- melios) as it normally is in the
New Testament. Wherever the New Testament is speaking of a
true "foundation", this word themelios is found. The following references will make this
clear: Luke 6.48-49 I Tim.
6.19 Luke 14.29 II
Tim. 2.19 Acts 12.26 Heb.
1.10 (as a verb) Rom. 15.20 Heb. 6.1 I Cor. 3, 10, 11, 12 Heb. 11.10 Eph. 2.20 Rev.
21.14-19 Thus if there is a word in
New Testament Greek, the meaning of which is unequivocably and
unambiguously "foundation", it is the word themelios. In the recurrent phrase, "the
foundation of the world", one might
reasonably, therefore, have expected to find this word used, if the meaning
really is the foundation of the world. On the other hand, to render
it, "the disruption of the world", and thereby make it a
reference back to a catastrophe implied in Gen ,1.2, requires that the noun be
given a meaning for which we have no other precedent in Greek
literature. Nor did
,
apparently, come by custom to be associated
with the word
("world"), the word which follows it,
as a kind of "accepted formula" for the creation, because elsewhere (when clearly speaking of the
creation) the phrase used is
,
or : ie. , "from the beginning
of the world" (as in Matt. 24.21) or "from the beginning of the
creation" (as in II Pe. 3.4). So also in Mark 10.6 and 13.19. Since the word
means "order", it would not be surprising if the
writers of the New Testament had coined a new phrase to describe the
catastrophe, referring to it thereafter as the "disruption of the
world order". They may then
have used it as a reference point with respect
to God's redemptive plans - for this may well have been the
first overt rebellion of the created order against the authority of
the Creator. The great majority of
Greek scholars would undoubtedly object to any claim that the noun
can ever mean "destruction" on the grounds that "there is no
evidence for it". But this is
circular reasoning. For there is no
evidence only provided that we refuse to allow
to be rendered "disruption" in the New Testament. Other- wise, the argument has no
force whatever. One cannot disallow something by merely
asserting it to be unallowable to start with and saying it cannot be
allowed because there is no evidence for it! Classical Greek and New
Testament Greek do not always agree. Some words in the New
Testament are given meanings which they do not hold in classical
Greek, and Heb. 6.1 strongly supports the idea that
may be one such word. * * * Copyright © 1988 Evelyn White. All rights reserved
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