Username Password
Create New Login

Topic: EIS KATABOLHN SPERMATOS = Sowing of Seed, not Conception (1 Post)

Message: EIS KATABOLHN SPERMATOS = Sowing of Seed, not Conception
Posted by [tmoore1008] on Sunday, 12-Apr-2009 12:36:20 EDT
BDAG: a t.t. [technical term] for the sowing of seed...this expression could not be used of Sarah, but only of Abraham (s.v. καταβολή 2). Metzger comments...in Greek the expression DUNAMIN EIS KATABOLHN SPERMATOS ELABEN is regularly used of the male in begetting, not the female in conceiving...a majority of the Committee understood the words KAI AUTH SARRA STEIRA to be a Hebraic circumstantial clause, thus allowing ABRAAM (ver. 8) to serve as subject of ELABEN http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2001-September/018267.html KATABOLH SPERMATOS refers to the male role in procreation. Sarah's role would have been described as EIS hUPODOCHN.... [Matthew] Black prefers to view KAI AUTH SARRA STEIRA as a paratactic circumstantial clause ("By faith, even though Sarah herself was barren, he received ..."), which is a Semitic construction attested in elsewhere in Hebrews, e.g. at 1:5. It may not be necessary to go the Semitic route, though, the expression KAI AUTH SARRA STEIRA could function as a parenthesis: "By faith (and Sarah herself was sterile) he received the power to impregnate ..." http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2001-September/018266.html although some commentaries feel it is possible that the Greek (perhaps actually Hebraic) idiom could have been semantically extended to include a woman's part in procreation http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2000-December/014501.html Moreover, there are those who argue for more than merely a "semantic extension" to the idiom. Rather the description is considered to be "literal" in that the model of a female "throwing down sperm (or seed)" was completely in line with contemporary models of reproduction http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2000-December/014509.html http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2000-December/014500.html Genesis 3:15 and order of ideas http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-hebrew/2004-December/021715.html http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-hebrew/2004-December/thread.html#21741