This Romans 9:5 construction is fairly unique in the Bible, with an unusual one-time word order θεὸς εὐλογητὸς. Murray Harris comments on this unusual reversed word order and also speaks of the "natural association" of the two words. spin was in the same ballpark when he wrote of both words being nominative and singular and masculine as helping to understand how they are connected. And spin wrote of εὐλογητὸς being nominalized, which, if he is correct, eliminates the interpretation that has it as an adjective describing θεὸς .
Harris is commenting on how an
asyndetic doxology involving the construction θεὸς εὐλογητὸς would be unusual. The subject would normally be clearly defined by an article and the adjective would be emphasized before the noun. The "natural association" is simply that εὐλογητὸς directly modifies θεὸς, and both together tell us something about ὁ Χριστὸς. His take on it is that any translation that makes εὐλογητὸς refer
directly to ὁ Χριστὸς severs that "natural association."
For example, the famous (and uncontroverted) passage in Matthew 7:15, "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves." In Greek, Προσέχετε δέ ἀπὸ
τῶν ψευδοπροφητῶν οἵτινες ἔρχονται πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἐν ἐνδύμασιν προβάτων ἔσωθεν δὲ εἰσιν
λύκοι ἅρπαγες. The "false prophets" (τῶν ψευδοπροφητῶν) are described as "ravenous wolves." Similar to Romans 9:5, the noun λύκοι ("wolves") comes before the adjective ἅρπαγες ("ravenous"). But we would not say that the false prophets are "ravenous"
and "wolves," but that they are "ravenous wolves."
Actually it does matter. It is one thing to read Classical Greek and another to be an expert. From what I can see over many years, spin has a very strong and wide background. He posted on the earlier IIDB and FRDB forums, which are in archives, before the current one.
Even if Spin did have a "wide background," it would be worse for him because it means in this place he was being deliberately dishonest. Because his statement was flat wrong, and verifiably so. As JM has said, and I have said, εὐλογητός is
not a noun. It's an adjective. You can look at least that much up on your own. Two nominatives together cannot yield that kind of interpretation. You have to involve another case in combination with the nominative.
Waiting for some comment on Hippolytus, who looks to be saying "God blessed (is Christ)".
Already done:
brianrw said: The English translator uses a postpositive adjective in the English (like "God Almighty"), which is usually attributive unless it sets off its own clause, in which case it would function like a predicate. This construction was designed to allow the adjective to sit as close to the head noun as possible and yet still be followed up by a prepositional or adverbial phrase. Hippolytus actually quotes the passage, ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων Θεὸς εὐλογητὸς and then follows it with the verb γεγέννηται, "has been born."
Right.