Trinitarian confusion at Romans 9:5

John Milton , could you show us a verse from Scripture where any apostle of Christ or any saint in heaven offers λατρεύω to anyone other than the Father ? Just verse and chapter next post. Nothing else.

Acts 27:23 (AV)
For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve,

παρέστη γάρ μοι τῇ νυκτὶ ταύτῃ ἄγγελος τοῦ θεοῦ οὗ εἰμι ᾧ καὶ λατρεύω

So if an angel of God can receive λατρεύω, then clearly the Messiah of God can receive λατρεύω as well.
 
And cjab's. The two missed the point I made using hapax legomenon as an illustration, (which should've been enough to help them understand their problem) and continue confusing pragmatics and chance for grammar. Neither of them know Greek. We might as well be trying to explain the color blue to a blind man.
And you offer who in response, exactly? A bunch of Trinitarians who if they have any gnosis at all, concede that their Trinitarian grammar rendition of Rom 9:5 cannot be definitive. It's only those are delusional who imagine a failsafe Trinitarian argument.

"hapax legomenon" can hardly apply to Rom 9:5, given the number of places τὸ κατὰ σάρκα terminates a clause.

More to the point, there are plenty who do know Greek and favour the non-Trinitarian interpretation, such as:
Erasmus considered one of the greatest scholars of the northern Renaissance.

And from Logos.com we get this of Winer and Moulton who see no grammar issues with the non-trinitarian version:

"Overview​


Georg Benedikt Winer's A Treatise on the Grammar of New Testament Greek transformed the study of New Testament Greek in his lifetime and was the standard grammar from the first edition published in 1822 through the sixth edition, translated into English by W. F. Moulton in 1870. This third revised edition of Moulton's translation was the precursor to Moulton, Howard and Turner’s four volume Grammar of New Testament Greek. At 880 pages, Winer and Moulton’s grammar has maintain an important place in the study of New Testament Greek for over a century and continues to be referred to by scholars today in commentaries series such as the New International Greek Testament Commentary, Word Biblical Commentary, and Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament.

Detailed and readable, this volume holds a deserved position beside the other great New Testament Greek reference grammars of the past two centuries, such as Blass-Debrunner-Funk, Robertson, and Moulton-Howard-Turner.

Georg Benedik Winer’s grammar went through seven German editions between 1822 and 1867, growing from fewer than 200 pages to well over 700. The importance of his work was so clear that it was translated in to English four times, the first in 1825, a mere three years after its initial German release. But it was the translation by W. F. Moulton that was the most important, culminating in the third edition of 1882. Moulton’s translation significantly expanded on Winer’s work, adding valuable notes and comments of his own based on the best scholarship of his day.

In the decades that followed the publication of the Winer-Moulton edition, the papyri revolution, led by Adolf Deissmann, changed the face of Greek grammatical study, but Winer’s grammar, especially as translated and expanded by Moulton, was one of the few to maintain its value. This can be attributed not only to the keen knowledge of Winer, but also to the brilliance of W. F. Moulton, whose expansions and annotations have provided significant lasting value to an already excellent work."
 
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Acts 27:23 (AV)
For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve,

παρέστη γάρ μοι τῇ νυκτὶ ταύτῃ ἄγγελος τοῦ θεοῦ οὗ εἰμι ᾧ καὶ λατρεύω

So if an angel of God can receive λατρεύω, then clearly the Messiah of God can receive λατρεύω as well.
Incorrect. The word "whose" (οὗ genitive in Greek) relates to τοῦ θεοῦ (also in genitive) not ἄγγελος (nominative).

Also, Rev 22:9 makes it heretical to worship anyone else but God. As the angel said to John who tried to worship him, Ὅρα μή, followed by τῷ Θεῷ προσκύνησον.
 
And you offer who in response, exactly?
What does this mean? I don't have to "offer" anyone.
A bunch of Trinitarians who if they have any gnosis at all, concede that their Trinitarian grammar rendition of Rom 9:5 cannot be definitive. It's only those are delusional who imagine a failsafe Trinitarian argument.
Most Trinitarians who can read Greek will say that the passage is ambiguous because it is. It is the Unitarian bunch (who can rarely read Greek) who insist it can only be understood in a certain manner. You guys invent all types of ridiculous "grammatical" reasons to try to "prove" that the passage can only take one meaning. It's funny to me that you are so terrified of the Trinitarian boogeyman that only exists in your own imagination.
"hapax legomenon" can hardly apply to Rom 9:5, given the number of places τὸ κατὰ σάρκα terminates a clause.
This illustrates how deficient your thinking is. The places where "τὸ κατὰ σάρκα terminates a clause" will be left to random chance just like the words which happen to be hapax legomenon.
More to the point, there are plenty who do know Greek and favour the non-Trinitarian interpretation, such as:
Erasmus considered one of the greatest scholars of the northern Renaissance.
But none of the people that you cite that favor that interpretation insist that it is the only possibility as you do. Do you understand the difference?
And from Logos.com we get this of Winer and Moulton who see no grammar issues with the non-trinitarian version:
So what? They aren't the ones who are claiming that there is only one possible interpretation of the verse. They didn't make up fake grammar rules to try to justify their positions. If they had, they would've been relegated to the dustbin as your thoughts should be.
 
Acts 27:23 (AV)
For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve,

παρέστη γάρ μοι τῇ νυκτὶ ταύτῃ ἄγγελος τοῦ θεοῦ οὗ εἰμι ᾧ καὶ λατρεύω

So if an angel of God can receive λατρεύω, then clearly the Messiah of God can receive λατρεύω as well.
Steven, the antecedent of οὗ is τοῦ θεοῦ not ἄγγελος. Interesting that Trinitarians pull these sorts of tricks as well, capitalizing on a seeming ambiguity, with the only difference that they do so where Jesus rather than an angel is in close view. The following is a good example of Trinitarian distortion:

οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἀληθινὸς Θεὸς καὶ ζωὴ αἰώνιος.

οὗτός in 1 John 5:20 apparently refers to Jesus rather than to the Father.
 
This illustrates how deficient your thinking is. The places where "τὸ κατὰ σάρκα terminates a clause" will be left to random chance just like the words which happen to be hapax legomenon.
No idea what you mean. If there is a "strong limitation" in Rom 9:5, how can ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα be broken up? Whether τὸ κατὰ σάρκα is adverbial or substantival seems to make not one iota of difference, as the implied verb is equative.

From whom is, according to the flesh, the Christ. (adverbial)
From whom is the Christ, the one according to the flesh. (substantival)

In each case it is imposing a strong limitation that the physical Christ alone is being considered.

As I have suggested so many times previously, if Christ was being considered in two senses, a completely different construction would have been used, as indeed in Rom 1:3,4.

Rom 1:4 should be the end of the "deity" inquiry. Christ was "declared to be the son of God." Why isn't it sufficient?

I see the Trinitarian obsession with Rom 9:5 as futile. We know the historical origin of it: it served as a useful verse to counter Arianism in the mind of ancient Trinitarians, many of whom were in reality pseudo-Sabellians and couldn't care about grammatical rectitude.



A GREEK GRAMMAR OF THE NEW TESTAMENT and Other Early Christian Literature (BDF) 1961 p.189 §266
(2) Τό κατά σάρκα R 9: 5 where the addition of the art. strongly emphasizes the limitation ('insofar as the physical is concerned').
 
No idea what you mean. If there is a "strong limitation" in Rom 9:5, how can ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα be broken up?
:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
BDF isn't saying that there is a strong limit to the boundary of the clause. It's saying that the inclusion of the article with the phrase κατὰ σάρκα makes it not just a qualification but an emphatic qualification (I.E. a strong limit) to what it modifies.
 
περὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ τοῦ γενομένου ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυὶδ κατὰ σάρκα, τοῦ ὁρισθέντος υἱοῦ θεοῦ ἐν δυνάμει κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν
In this stretch of text you referred to, it is obvious that the phrase τοῦ ὁρισθέντος υἱοῦ θεοῦ which follows κατὰ σάρκα is a resumption of what had already been said about the son. There is no reason why Romans 9:5 could not be doing the same thing. As with all prepositional phrases τὸ κατὰ σάρκα can be dropped and still leave a grammatical construction which would run "ἐξ ὧν ὁ Χριστὸς ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας". In that case even you, as ignorant of Greek as you are, should understand that it is grammatically acceptable.
 
In this stretch of text you referred to, it is obvious that the phrase τοῦ ὁρισθέντος υἱοῦ θεοῦ which follows κατὰ σάρκα is a resumption of what had already been said about the son. There is no reason why Romans 9:5 could not be doing the same thing. As with all prepositional phrases τὸ κατὰ σάρκα can be dropped and still leave a grammatical construction which would run "ἐξ ὧν ὁ Χριστὸς ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας". In that case even you, as ignorant of Greek as you are, should understand that it is grammatically acceptable.
I'm sure you would have liked τὸ κατὰ σάρκα to not have been in the text. Fact is that with τὸ κατὰ σάρκα there is always a stop, and always an antithesis present whether explicitly stated or implied.
 
:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
BDF isn't saying that there is a strong limit to the boundary of the clause. It's saying that the inclusion of the article with the phrase κατὰ σάρκα makes it not just a qualification but an emphatic qualification (I.E. a strong limit) to what it modifies.
Which is why it usually ends a clause, in practice.

The Trinitarian appraisal is that unqualified, unmodified, ὁ Χριστὸς can carry on being referenced outside of the clause, because τὸ κατὰ σάρκα is "adverbial."

This argument is too subtle. Consider the following:
The husband of this woman is this man.
The husband of this woman is temporarily this man.
==> "This man" is permanently modified by "temporarily." He cannot escape the qualification "temporarily" even if the sentence continues.

So ὁ Χριστὸς modified by τὸ κατὰ σάρκα cannot become unqualified.

If you look at τοῦ ὁρισθέντος ... κατὰ πνεῦμα in Rom 1:4, the sentence does continue after κατὰ πνεῦμα because the Υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ of Rom 1:3, as modified by Rom 1:4, remains in focus. But in Rom 9:5, the focus is lost after τὸ κατὰ σάρκα.
 
I'm sure you would have liked τὸ κατὰ σάρκα to not have been in the text.
I don't care either way. The passages that talk about Jesus and his divine power being exercised before the foundation of the world are plentiful and clear.
Fact is that with τὸ κατὰ σάρκα there is always a stop, and always an antithesis present whether explicitly stated or implied.
Even this were true (and it's not), it wouldn't change the fact that your entire argument is founded on a false premise.
 
Which is why it usually ends a clause, in practice.
"sually ends a clause" and "in practice"? Now you're equivocating.
The Trinitarian appraisal is that unqualified, unmodified, ὁ Χριστὸς can carry on being referenced outside of the clause, because τὸ κατὰ σάρκα is "adverbial."
This seems right.
This argument is too subtle. Consider the following:
The husband of this woman is this man.
The husband of this woman is temporarily this man.
==> "This man" is permanently modified by "temporarily." He cannot escape the qualification "temporarily" even if the sentence continues.
I guess you don't know English grammar either. "Temporarily" is an adverb. It can't modify a noun, so your example below is bust.
So ὁ Χριστὸς modified by τὸ κατὰ σάρκα cannot become unqualified.
I've already explained to you that ὁ Χριστὸς isn't being modified by τὸ κατὰ σάρκα. ὁ Χριστὸς is masculine and τὸ is neuter. That should've been a clue. Read BDF again for clarification. It tells you that it is an adverbial accusative, or are you throwing that part out because it doesn't fit with your theology?
If you look at τοῦ ὁρισθέντος ... κατὰ πνεῦμα in Rom 1:4, the sentence does continue after κατὰ πνεῦμα because the Υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ of Rom 1:3, as modified by Rom 1:4, remains in focus. But in Rom 9:5, the focus is lost after τὸ κατὰ σάρκα.
What a joke! The sentence continues after κατὰ πνεῦμα because ἁγιωσύνης modifies it, among other reasons. This alone deals a fatal blow to your pathetic assertion that κατά + σάρκα marks the end of a clause. For what is the grammatical difference between κατὰ σάρκα and κατὰ πνεῦμα? If one marks the boundary of a clause, shouldn't the other as well? Do you understand yet why your goose is cooked?
 
"That should've been a clue. Read BDF again for clarification. It tells you that it is an adverbial accusative, or are you throwing that part out because it doesn't fit with your theology?

What a joke! The sentence continues after κατὰ πνεῦμα because ἁγιωσύνης modifies it, among other reasons. This alone deals a fatal blow to your pathetic assertion that κατά + σάρκα marks the end of a clause. For what is the grammatical difference between κατὰ σάρκα and κατὰ πνεῦμα? If one marks the boundary of a clause, shouldn't the other as well? Do you understand yet why your goose is cooked?
Glad you finally realize that. τὸ κατὰ σάρκα has the sense “insofar as his physical descent is concerned.” I have been trying to explain to Brian from day one that there is no such thing in the GNT as a noun with an “ adverbial accusative” which functions as the head noun of a participle in an apparent second attributive position. It is just silly Greek. τὸ κατὰ σάρκα demands a period. It is a compressed adverbial expression . In English the sentence reads as follows:

Theirs are the patriarchs, and out of them is the Christ insofar as his physical descent is concerned . Period.

It is impossible, if you have any natural sense of the Koine of the bible to take ὁ ὢν (ἐπὶ πάντων Θεὸς) as being in the second attributive position to an imagined “head noun”, namely ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα.
 
See , your case is very weak & suspicious indeed. It’s always this one example , which can easily be appositional and therefore not an attributive use at all. The onus is on you to provide sufficient & strong evidence that ὁ ὢν is used in the second attributive position.
No, the burden is on you to substantiate your ad hoc rationalizations, which you have yet to do, and which the grammars contradict. I gave you more than one example multiple times before, and you know that, so I don't understand "it's always this one example."

It's very simple: an independent substantival usage of the attributive participle occurs when the head noun is implied, in which case the participle can function like a noun. That is what "independent" means. If its head noun is stated, it is attributive (proper) and would be considered "dependent." So let's look at a few examples of where you are wrong and the head noun is stated:
  1. ὁ ἀρχιοινοχόος καὶ ὁ ἀρχισιτοποιός οἳ ἦσαν τῷ βασιλεῗ Αἰγύπτου οἱ ὄντες ἐν τῷ δεσμωτηρίῳ (Genesis 40:5).
  2. οἱ ἄνδρες οἱ μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ ὄντες (Genesis 24:54)
  3. ἡ οἰκία ἡ οὖσα ἐν πόλει… (Leviticus 25:30)
  4. ἡ χήρα ἡ οὖσα ἐν ταῗς πόλεσίν σου (Deuteronomy 16:14)
  5. ὁ λαὸς ὁ ὢν ὀπίσω Αμβρι (1 Kings 16:22)
  6. καὶ οἱ δοῦλοι οἱ ὄντες ἐχθὲς... (1 Samuel 14:21)
  7. ἡ νομὴ ἡ οὖσα τοῗς σκύμνοις (Nahum 2:11)
  8. οἱ σύνδουλοι αὐτῶν Αφαρσαχαῗοι οἱ ἐν πέρα τοῦ ποταμοῦ μακρὰν ὄντες (Ezra 6:6)
  9. οἱ οὖν Ἰουδαῖοι οἱ ὄντες μετ᾽ αὐτῆς ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ (John 11:31)
  10. ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός, ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς (John 1:18 in most manuscripts, TR, MT, PT)
    μονογενὴς θεὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς (John 1:18, Alexandrian variant, 3rd attributive position)
  11. ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὁ ὤν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ (John 3:13, as found in nearly all manuscripts outside the Alexandrian family, including A*)
  12. ὁ ὄχλος ὁ ὢν μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ (John 12:17)
  13. οἱ ἀπόστολοι καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ οἱ ὄντες κατὰ τὴν Ἰουδαίαν (Acts 11:1)
  14. ὅ δέ ἱερεὺς τοῦ Διὸς τοῦ ὄντος πρὸ τῆς πόλεως αὐτῶν (Acts 14:13)
  15. τῷ νόμῳ τῆς ἁμαρτίας τῷ ὄντι ἐν τοῖς μέλεσίν μου (Romans 7:23)
  16. τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ τῇ οὔσῃ ἐν Κορίνθῳ (1 Cor. 1:2)
  17. τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ τῇ οὔσῃ ἐν Κορίνθῳ (2 Cor. 1:1)
  18. τοῖς ἁγίοις πᾶσιν τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ Ἀχαΐᾳ (2 Cor. 1:1)
  19. τοῖς ἁγίοις τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Ἐφέσῳ (Ephesians 1:1)
  20. τὴν ἄγνοιαν τὴν οὖσαν ἐν αὐτοῖς (Ephesians 4:18)
  21. πᾶσιν τοῖς ἁγίοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Φιλίπποις (Philippians 1:1)
  22. τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν τοῦ θεοῦ τῶν οὐσῶν ἐν τῇ Ἰουδαίᾳ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ (1 Thess. 2:14)
  23. ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ οἶδεν ὁ ὢν εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας ὅτι οὐ ψεύδομαι (2 Corinthians 11:31)
All of these are dependent, not independent; all are attributive proper, not substantival. This list is not exhaustive, and several of these occur in the introductions to Paul's epistles, so if you truly did read the GNT I find it hard to believe you could miss them. You would normally take these into English as a relative (a.k.a. adjective) clause, which in English corresponds most closely to the idiom of the Greek language for the attributive participle.

Indeed, doesn’t it strike you as odd that in the entire GNT you cannot find a single example of any participle form of εἰμί other than ὁ ὢν apparently functioning in the second attributive position ?
This is why I say you are arguing from a point of invincible ignorance. Don't you know that an article before a participle in an attributive position means that the participle is attributive? And that it is only independent (substantival) when the head noun is implied? The verse I provided, ὁ ὄχλος ὁ ὢν μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ (John 12:17), is a second attributive construction: article-noun-article-modifier. A participle in the attributive position still retains its verbal aspect, and so like a finite verb it can be modified by a prepositional phrase or other parts of speech, take an object, etc. The participial phrase modifies the head noun. The participle forms of εἰμί are no exception.

But you seem to treat the article before the participle as a mere substantivizer, which misses the point altogether.

Glad you finally realize that. τὸ κατὰ σάρκα has the sense “insofar as his physical descent is concerned.” I have been trying to explain to Brian that there is no such thing in the GNT of a noun with an “ adverbial accusative” which functions as the head noun of a participle in the second
Attributive position. It is just not possible. τὸ κατὰ σάρκα demands a period. It is a compressed adverbial expression .
You failed to recognize the adverbial accusative every bit as much as cjab, so pretending now you've always been on board is not going to fool anyone. John Milton aptly addressed the rest of this above, so the response is already inexplicable.

An adverb between a noun and a participle doesn't break the attributive participle construction. The construction article-noun-article-modifier represents the minimal elements required to form that particular construction--it doesn't mean every construction is made up of only four words or that absolutely nothing can come between the head noun/noun phrase and its modifier.

It is impossible, if you have any natural sense of the Koine of the bible to take ὁ ὢν ;ἐπὶ πάντων Θεὸς) as being in the second attributive position of an imagined “head noun”, namely ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα.
Why are you stating that an adverbial accusative is modifying the noun ὁ Χριστὸς? It is modifying ἐξ ὧν, as I keep saying. The head noun isn't "imagined," since it's plainly written there for anyone to see.
 
I guess you don't know English grammar either. "Temporarily" is an adverb. It can't modify a noun, so your example below is bust.
Non-sequitur and completely fallacious reasoning.

I've already explained to you that ὁ Χριστὸς isn't being modified by τὸ κατὰ σάρκα. ὁ Χριστὸς is masculine and τὸ is neuter. That should've been a clue. Read BDF again for clarification. It tells you that it is an adverbial accusative, or are you throwing that part out because it doesn't fit with your theology?
I haven't disputed the fact, so your critique is misplaced. I'm disputing your interpretation of an adverbial accusative.

What a joke! The sentence continues after κατὰ πνεῦμα because ἁγιωσύνης modifies it, among other reasons. This alone deals a fatal blow to your pathetic assertion that κατά + σάρκα marks the end of a clause. For what is the grammatical difference between κατὰ σάρκα and κατὰ πνεῦμα? If one marks the boundary of a clause, shouldn't the other as well? Do you understand yet why your goose is cooked?
Nothing you say above detracts from my reasoning.
 
Why are you stating that an adverbial accusative is modifying the noun ὁ Χριστὸς? It is modifying ἐξ ὧν, as I keep saying. The head noun isn't "imagined," since it's plainly written there for anyone to see.
If it is modifying ἐξ ὧν, it is also modifying ὁ Χριστὸς (grammatically speaking), because the verb is equative.

This means you cannot continue with ὁ Χριστὸς in any other grammatical sense than how it is appears in its clause. ὁ Χριστὸς is bound by and into its clause.

The addition of the art. strongly emphasizes the limitation. ὁ Χριστὸς is bound by the limitation, grammatically speaking. The limitation predominates.
 
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