I never said it couldn't. I'm saying you're comparing apples to oranges: when it begins a sentence, the head nominal in the GNT is implied and the usage is almost always generic of the whole class pertaining to the equation (i.e., he who or the one who in a general sense). None of the examples above demonstrate a cataphora involving ὁ ὢν.
There is no cataphora, as this is a standard 1st position attributive layout using a participle + clause as an attributive. It can't be denied.
Each of these demonstrate a substantival usage of the attributive participle. For example, ἐκ τῆς γῆς is the predicate of the participial phrase ὁ ὢν ἐκ τῆς γῆς. But the subject is generic--it can refer to anyone who belongs to the class of individuals who originate "from/of the earth." This differs from the construction in Romans 9:5.
OK, so the examples I quoted were irrelevant to my postion, and only relevant to your argument, as to which
Hippolytus would be my authority for repudiating "your" argument that ὁ ὢν can't be substantival here, as he is prepared to quote ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων Θεὸς on its own, seeing ὁ ὢν as substantival, and Θεὸς as anarthrous.
To the contrary, in the GNT every time ὁ ὢν is preceded by a head nominal of the same case and gender in the same sentence it always refers to that head nominal. In such examples of ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός, ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο (John 1:18) and ὁ ὄχλος ὁ ὢν μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ (John 12:17), ὁ λαὸς ὁ ὢν ὀπίσω Αμβρι (1 Kings 16:22), ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ οἶδεν ὁ ὢν εὐλογητὸς (2 Cor. 11:31) and (as in most manuscripts) ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὁ ὤν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ (John 3:13), the head nominal is clearly stated and the attributive participle is dependent upon it. You will find this true of the broad range of participles in the 2nd attributive. The examples increase when we add the other cases, number, and gender. These would be proper grammatical equivalents to the Romans 9:5 construction, which you and TRJM have fought tooth and nail to avoid.
Paul seems to use ὁ ὢν is a way that is not reflected by other writers, limiting ὁ ὢν to Θεὸς as referent. I don't think there is much point in referring to John, say, as an authority for Paul's usage of ὁ ὢν, as there is no evidence that Paul was willing to use ὁ ὢν other than in connection with Θεὸς. LIkewise Paul can't be taken as an authority for John's use of λόγος, because John's usage is limited to "God's" word, whereas Paul uses λόγος indiscriminately. To try and compare the writers on their idiosyncrasies is pointless.
To insist on a "generic" usage of ὁ ὢν here doesn't seem right, because (a) There is no evidence that Paul had any generic use for ὁ ὢν, (b) there is an obvious intent by Paul to disassociate ὁ ὢν from ὁ Χριστὸς by τὸ κατὰ σάρκα which didn't need to be located where it was because it is adverbial, as you keep on telling me.
Why do you suppose Paul put an adverb between ὁ Χριστὸς and ὁ ὢν?
In
2Co 5:16 you'll note that Χριστὸς comes after κατὰ σάρκα.
It's far more than a half a dozen. It is all the Greek fathers who quote the passage and comment on it in such a way that their position is clearly related.
We don't care about the "fathers" because the evidence is that Greek grammar was pretty fluid with them: they interpreted things howsoever they wanted to, that is according to their theological bent, and we know they obsessed over God the Word, begotten of the Father in heaven, which is enough to drive anyone insane anyway. We can even credit Julian the Apostate's critique of them, when he insinuates that they manipulated grammar any which way they chose.
The best of your own ilk have been searching for negative evidence for a long time. After about four hundred years of unrelenting search, all that is offered in opposition is Eusebius, who never quotes the passage
The mature Eusebius does use "God above all" an awful lot, and I would say he was quoting this passage, as does the English translator of
Contra Marcellus and
Ecclesiastical theology who sees him as quoting from this passage directly.
(and who does refer to Christ as God the Word and supreme over all), an Arian interpolator of the longer epistles of Ignatius who also never quotes the passage and is writing against the patripassions, and perhaps two other writers whose writings do not clearly demonstrate what is inferred from them. Together with this we are offered a false representation of the usage of a middot in the manuscripts (referring to it as a "stop" or "period," when it is only a sign to the reader for taking up a breath). What I can infer from this is that most of the arguments again is the reading are both exaggerated and theologically driven.
If you could point to any of the Greeks who unequivocally see the passage a different way, feel free to let me know and I will amend my statement accordingly. I've thus far failed to find them in any of the cases, nor to my knowledge has any one of your four hundred or so year old sect (I'm being generous in attributing it to Biddle rather than Lindsey).
As I have said Iraeneus and the mature Eusebius are both consistent on whom "God above all" denotes, and it isn't Jesus.
I feel the text would not be considered ambiguous except that the suggestion that a period after σάρκα had taken root roughly four hundred years ago and we've become nose blind to it. I, for one, would never have read it that way or even entertained the possibility had it not been suggested to me in some way shape or fashion, and I always find the justification for adding a period to boil down to a theological presupposition--that Paul would not call Christ "God."
That's a very reasonable theological presupposition.
In addition, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries there were no less than six proposed emendations to the passage in order to avoid that most natural reading, based upon that presupposition, so that tells me the period wasn't obvious to them either and was relatively novel. Beza actually ascribes its origin to Erasmus, which I find so far to be accurate.
Does it really matter where the periods are in the manuscripts? There were likely none in the original.
It's not supported by the Greek manuscripts, fathers, and versions--I don't even see the heterodox before the 17th century appealing suggesting it, when it otherwise may have greatly benefitted their arguments. These passages were so frequently employed against the heterodox and we've found no extant writer suggesting they were reading it wrong or another reading was possible. So I don't think the Greeks regarded it as ambiguous. Rather, they had to counter the patripassions who were taking the passage to the extreme by labeling Christ the Father. Even then, they still did not deny that it calls Christ "God" when a doxology to the Father may have seemed expedient.
Do you know of any examples where ὁ ὢν sits in what would otherwise appear to be a second attributive position, yet refers to a head nominal that follows it? Maybe you have encountered a cataphora involving ὁ ὢν where ὁ ὢν would otherwise appear to be in a second attributive position? However, off the top of my head I don't recall seeing any examples, and I think the Greek offers enough options where such an ambiguity could be easily avoided. I've clearly seen substantival and anaphoric. I'll keep my eyes open as well.
It's not a cataphora but a bog standard 1st attributive position participle + participle clause. There is nothing untoward about it. 1st attributive position participle + participle clauses are found elsewhere in the NT, especially in Paul's writings.
This is correct.
Here Beet is setting up a theological negation. It's not, in my honest opinion, a very strong one--where Beet devotes one sentence to the most natural reading, does not discuss its merits, and then resorts to several paragraphs of weak exegetical and ungrammatical arguments from theology and style. Stronger arguments from style and exegesis exist in its favor.
The late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are in my opinion one of the worst periods for Greek exegesis.
That's only because they didn't insist on the hyper-trinitarianism of the ECFs, and allowed true"protestantism" to flourish in all its forms.
There are at least three places where Paul--under the most natural reading of each passage--specifically refers to Christ as God.
Julian the Apostate "Against the Galileans".
"But you are so misguided that you have not even remained faithful to the teachings that were handed down to you by the apostles. And these also have been altered., so as to be worse and more impious, by those who came after.
At any rate neither Paul nor Matthew nor Luke nor Mark ventured to call Jesus God."
So this must have been common knowledge even way back (showing that Sharp's rule doesn't have any application to the NT in respect of ὁ Θεὸς).
