Barry Hofstetter offers euphony as the reason for seeing apposition

[Steven Avery]

CARM - March 2, 2023
https://forums.carm.org/threads/trinitarian-confusion-at-romans-9-5.8316/post-627286

Barry was far more honest and sensible than the two gentlemen (Brian here and a gentleman on reddit) who were claiming apposition for the verse.

Barry Hofstetter
For me, a big part of it is the way the Greek actually reads. It flows. It's somewhat rhythmic. This implies to me a strong connection between all the nominatives to have the same referent, that of the original first nominative. Euphony is something that often gets overlooked in these discussion, in part, I think, because many exegetes, despite their technical skills, really haven't internalized the language to the extent that they notice such things.

And I responded:

Steven Avery
However, it is an awkward listing, with God being in the middle. You would think it would be said dynamically, and primary.

And you simply break the connection with God and blessed.

However, I will note that you did try to come up with something for the apposition theory. Quite conjectural, no imperative involved.

If the text actually said that Christ and God are in apposition, then it should be accepted, it is not that way in my Authorized Version, which keeps the natural association of God and blessed

Romans 9:5 (AV)
Whose are the fathers,
and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came,
who is over all,
God blessed for ever.
Amen.

No apposition!

Now to be fair to Barry, he did acknowledge the correctness of spin on the key issue of how God and blessed have a natural association, their grammatical sameness.

Steven Avery
both words are nominative singular masculine.
https://forums.carm.org/threads/trinitarian-confusion-at-romans-9-5.8316/post-626059

Barry Hofstetter
both are, but that suggests to me apposition and both having the same referent.

Barry's conclusion is confusion, since it really shows that the two words are connected, which is not true if they are independent referents.
To his credit, he acknowledged one key grammatical point from spin, that is generally missed in analysis.

 

[Brianrw]

Now to be fair to Barry, he did acknowledge the correctness of spin on the key issue of how God and blessed have a natural association, their grammatical sameness.

No, he didn't. He admitted that they are masculine nominatives, which has no relationship with what Spin wrote. You misrepresented Spin's argument by swapping out "nouns" for "nominatives," which changes things entirely, and didn't even tell him Spin said it should mean "Blessed by God" (which is actually a misreading of the English text). You do know that nominative is a case in Greek grammar, and that it is not a synonym for a noun? An adjective isn't a noun, but it can be in the nominative case (that is, pertaining to the subject). Spin is flat wrong. That's all there is to it. Give it up already. He didn't even show back up to defend himself.

You had previously asked another ambiguous question before that, to which he responded, "One (that's me) would have to know what someone who has no knowledge of Greek (that's you) means by 'grammatically connected.'" To which you responded about Harris's "natural association" (which has taken on its own meaning with you). He then responded to you, saying, "Do they have actual arguments to explain what they mean, or do we have to take your word for it?" and after you explained ambiguously again he responded "The term 'natural association' without further clarification is meaningless."

Even here, "grammatical sameness" is absolutely meaningless.

So you didn't even ask the questions right, now you're back in the forum claiming victory. Which makes no sense. I don't think he had any idea what you were really trying to ask.

FYI, he's probably answering against the only recognized alternative, that the passage be emended with a period after "flesh," which is why he uses the words "suggests to me" (i.e., in opposition to that). But you could ask him to clarify.

When there is a noun and an adjective together in the nominative case, the adjective is either attributive (has the article) or predicative (has no article). They don't form a compound. It's literally one of the easiest concepts to understand in Greek. There is an attributive participle which means the rest of the sentence describes the subject, Christ. That makes "God" a predicate nominative. When you have a predicate nominative thus described by an adjective and the connection of an attributive participle they all refer back to the same subject: Christ. It's incredibly simple. But it's been painfully difficult for anyone to get that point across to you.

Why don't you ask him about it straight, I'm pretty sure he'll tell you that your translation is rubbish.

At some point I think you'll realize you owe me a huge apology.

 

[Steven Avery]

No, he didn't. He admitted that they are masculine nominatives, which has no relationship with what Spin wrote. You misrepresented Spin's argument by swapping out "nouns" for "nominatives," which changes things entirely,

:Here is what spin wrote.

On the text, the writer has placed two noun forms together, God and the nominalized verb ("blessed"), both nominative singular masculine, so you naturally link them together (just another indicator). But if you can propose a grammatical reason for separating the two NSMs and placing the first with a phrase it has no apparent grammatical connection with, I'll be willing to read it, but I won't hold my breath. Perhaps you might like to reorder ο ων επι παντων θεος as well to help you. I won't mind. Honest.

He calls blessed a nominalized verb and a noun form.

So you are very confused to say that Barry acceptance of the dual nominative singular masculine is unrelated to spin. In fact, it is rather incredible that this has been unmentioned. Only a few people, like Murray's natural association, even hint at the connection.

My sense is that spin is actually fluent in Greek, and understands the non-rigidity, where you struggle.

Barry agreed with the key part of spin's argument, although he tried to tack on a wacky conclusion to deal with the grammatical "sameness" and the natural association.

To his credit Barry did not try the phony attributive participle argument, which is circular and selective, where you have been either confused or deceiving. The idea that God is an attribute to Christ is ultra-awkward, there was actually a good quote from CARM on that part the other day.

 

[Brianrw]

"Nominalize" means to convert a word or phrase into a noun; εὐλογητὸς is an adjective. Nominative is a case in Greek that pertains to the subject. So we are not looking at two nouns strung together. They all start with "NO" but that does not make them equivalent.

I'm not confused at all. By my, are you confused.

Murray's "natural association" is not a hint at the connection. As I said over and over again, the natural association means that the adjective describes "God." I posted the rules right out of Greek grammars, and even sent you a link to a video to help you understand that. Exactly what more evidence do you want?

His response specifically:

This won't work and shows that you depend on the English, not the Greek (although I think the English does not bear this interpretation either). "Blessed, " εὐλογητός, is passive in sense and must refer to nominative subject.

There's no hidden, advanced Greek rule that few recognize where two nominatives, one a noun and another an adjective, can form a compound adjective or prepositional phrase. You're simply misreading the English text. And going through more links it looks like Barry has told you the same thing. You didn't stumble on some lost find. Two nominatives cannot act on each other in that way. You didn't suddenly recover some lost, pre-Nicene interpretation.

To his credit Barry did not try the phony attributive participle argument, which is circular and selective, where you have been either confused or deceiving. The idea that God is an attribute to Christ is ultra-awkward, there was actually a good quote from CARM on that part the other day.

An attributive expression is a word or phrase that modifies the head noun. So before you go posting another thread (which I suspect you will) shooting your mouth off about something you don't understand, I'm not calling "God" an attribute of Christ. The attributive participle in Greek forms the equivalent of a relative clause in English.

I think you should let Barry speak for himself; I don't really know his position and you don't seem to be interested in accurately relating the arguments of those you disagree with. But he didn't seem to have a problem with my assessment over at CARM.

As I said before, someday you're going to realize you owe me a huge apology on all this.