Here is a very productive conversation I've been having in a YT comment thread:
@mattmangum980
• 1 day ago (edited)
There's a bit more going in 1 Cor. 7:2 than just a change in words between heautou and idios. The Greek grammar makes it impossible for the woman to be the one being possessed. For those who do not know, Greek is what is called an inflected language, meaning the form of the noun tells you what function it is playing in the sentence. You can find inflection in other modern languages like German and Russian and it used to exist in English; it mostly only exists in vestigial form in our pronouns. For example "he" is the subject, "him" is the object, and "his" speaks of possession. They are all the same word but in different cases.
In the phrase referring to the woman, the subject of the phrase is hekaste ἑκάστη (the feminine form of hekastos), which is translated as "each woman" (note: the feminine "each" refers back to gynaika γυναῖκα, i.e. woman. We need to add "woman/wife" in translation because there is no such thing as a feminine "each" in English). This means that the woman is one who does the possessing in the second occurrence of the verb exeto ἐχέτω (have/possess). The verb is in the active voice, meaning the woman is doing the action to something else and not having the action done to her (passive). Both the adjective idion ἴδιον (own) and noun andra ἄνδρα (man/husband) are in what is known as the accusative case, meaning they are the objects of the phrase, making them the things possessed. That is, the verb is being done to the man.
The page he displays in Blue Letter Bible confirms this if you are not sure. Below are what the abbreviations on the page mean:
A-NSF = Adjective - Nominative (i.e. subject) Singular Feminine applied to hekaste.
A-ASM = Adjective - Accusative (i.e. object) Singular Masculine applied to idion.
N-ASM = Noun - Accusative Singular Masculine applied to andra.
V-PAM-3S = Verb - Present Active Imperative - Third Person Singular applied to exeto.
I could break this down with a very literal translation of the latter half of the verse with the accompanying Greek:
"And each [feminine] own man should have."
καὶ ἑκάστη τὸν ἴδιον ἄνδρα ἐχέτω.
This is not proper translation because it fails to follow English syntax. We also must supply the noun "woman" because there is no such thing as a feminine "each" in English and supply the pronoun "her" since English sounds weird without it. To put it into proper English, we must pay attention to the grammar of the Greek. So when we note what is the subject and object in the sentence, we put the sentence into the standard SVO (subject-verb-object) ordering of English and get the following:
"And each woman (subject) should have (active verb) her own man (object)."
For the sentence to read, "And each woman is to be possessed by her own man," the Greek grammar would need to be entirely different. The verb would need to be shifted from active to passive (the difference between "possess" and "be possessed") and the reference to "own man" would need to shift into the genitive case with an accompanying additional preposition to be the one doing the action of the passive verb.
Let me put this into an English equivalent that can sound a little odd but that our knowledge of English grammar can help with:
"Me has she for a spouse."
Though this sentence sounds strange, we instinctively know that "she" is doing the having and "me" is what she has for a spouse. This is exactly the same kind of thing that is going on in the Greek. It can't coherently be reversed.
I know that can seem a little technical, but the bottom line is this is elementary Greek stuff. Students who are several weeks through first-year Greek should know this. My suspicion is Pete Rambo does not truly read Greek (he read the English transliteration and not the inflected Greek word) and has no business offering his own alternate translations that have nothing to do with the Greek.
@petergrambo
• 13 hours ago
I had two years of seminary Greek, thank you.
The concept expressed by Paul fits the same authority structure we see in 1 Cor 11:3 and throughout all of Scripture. The woman belongs to the man, the man never belongs to or is under the authority of the woman.
She does, as 1 Cor. 7:4 supports, have a right to his body (Ex.
21:10) that he is required to fulfill, but nothing ever in Scripture supports her possessing or 'owning' him.
@mattmangum980
• 13 hours ago
@petergrambo I stand corrected regarding your study of Greek.
I would, however, need an explanation of how the Greek in this passage could be construed in a passive sense rather than an active one. Even if ἴδιος is conveying a different shade of "own," I see no plausible way that ἐχέτω is an action performed by the man rather than the woman. Furthermore, such an explanation would need to explain how ἴδιον in 1 Cor. 7:2 is functioning in a different semantic sense than the two occurrences of τοῦ ἰδίου σώματος in 1 Cor. 7:4.
@petergrambo
• 11 hours ago
@mattmangum980 There are multiple uses of idios in the NT that function as I believe 1 Co 7:2 does. My understanding of function is based more on my understanding of the laws concerning marriage and consistent hermeneutic than syntax. I would submit
John 4:44
Acts 1:19
Acts 2:6
Acts 2:8
Acts 13:36
Acts 25:19
Rom.
11:24
Rom. 14:4
1 Cor. 14:35
1 Th.
2:14
as examples.
Paul's Ephesians 5 declaration that marriage images the Messiah and ekklesia should inform our understanding of 1 Cor. 7:2. Does the ekklesia own or have a controlling/possessive claim over the Messiah?
Multiple places in Scripture idios means 'belong to' wherein the one belonging can be singular or one of a group. 'his own country' 'his own city' 'his own language' etc.. thus proving 'idios' does not always mean exclusive ownership as heautou does.
So, yes.. two years of Greek.. a long time ago, but i'm no expert. (I speak three other languages better than my knowledge of Greek.
) Our translations though, must be consistent with the whole counsel of God's Word where too often doctrinal bias creeps in... woman owning or possessing or having exclusive control over man is an impossibility according to Scripture.
@mattmangum980
• 1 hour ago
@petergrambo If I am following you correctly, you are shifting away from 1 Cor. 7:2b as reading “each woman is to be possessed by her man” and instead arguing on the grounds that ἴδιος is a non-exclusive “belonging” while ἑαυτοῦ denotes a specific “belonging.” On those grounds, the Greek is saying that the woman is exclusively the man’s while the man is not exclusively the woman’s. Correct me if I am wrong on that point. In any case, I’m not so sure the semantic ranges of either ἑαυτοῦ or ἴδιος can carry the weight of exclusivist/non-exclusivist understandings.
The use of ἑαυτοῦ as a word denoting possession/belonging is its least common usage. It is more often a reflexive pronoun or one communicating reciprocal action. True, when it is used to communicate one’s “own” thing, that thing is often unique to that person, e.g. own father (Luke 14:26), own life (also Luke 14:26), own son (Rom. 8:3), own belly (Rom. 16:18). But other uses would seem to show that is also used in non-exclusive contexts, such as own master/lord (Luke 12:36), own bread (2 Thes.
3:12), or their garments (Matt. 21:8). Especially in the case of Luke 12:36 and the men awaiting their own master (τὸν κύριον ἑαυτῶν), a sense of exclusive ownership does not hold up.
Semantically, ἴδιος and ἑαυτοῦ seem to overlap a good deal. Ἑαυτοῦ may have been the preferred word for unique things, but ἴδιος also speaks of one’s unique things, as in own father (John 5:18) or own son (Rom. 8:32). One word may have been preferred over the other in certain circumstances, but there is enough semantic overlap to indicate that whatever difference existed between these two words was subtle and not likely to be semantically significant. It seems to me that it may be similar to the difference between saying “in my own opinion” versus “in my personal opinion;” definitely a different connotation, but not necessarily one that carries any significant meaning.
Our own English word “own” seems to function in a similar way to both ἴδιος and ἑαυτοῦ, making it a proper translation for both and one that carries essentially the same connotations. When I speak of my “own” something or other, I am merely emphasizing that that thing pertains to me rather than someone else. My own house, my own wife, my own country, as opposed to someone else’s. Ownership, exclusivity, or non-exclusivity cannot be derived from that word alone.
So I am not arguing for the woman to be thought of as “owning” or “possessing” her husband, nor am I saying that ἴδιος and ἑαυτοῦ are the operative words in the sentence. The verb ἐχέτω is where we get the sense of “having” from. In parallel ways, the man and the woman are both to ἐχέτω another which pertains to them, i.e. the man is to have his own woman as opposed to someone else’s, and so also the woman is to have her own man as opposed to someone else’s. Neither is owning the other—we can “have” God without possessing him, after all (2 John 9)—but each is “having” the other in a way that is unique. The man isn’t just having “a woman” and the woman isn’t just having “a man,” as that leaves open a whole host of immoral potentialities, but they are having their “own man” and “own woman” that pertain specifically to them.
I am a complementarian and believe Ephesians 5 speaks of male headship in the marriage relationship. Yet I also see the language of uniqueness and assumption of one-to-one pairings in the language Paul uses. Plurals are used in conjunction (Αἱ γυναῖκες τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν; Οἱ ἄνδρες, ἀγαπᾶτε τὰς γυναῖκας) and singulars are used in conjunction (καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος πατέρα καὶ μητέρα καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα; ἕνα ἕκαστος τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα οὕτως ἀγαπάτω ὡς ἑαυτόν). Paul speaks of Christ and the ekklesia (singular) in his discussion of man and woman, appearing to assume pairings of a single man and wife as the ideal picture of Christ and the ekklesia. But that ends up becoming another discussion.
You said that your interpretation arises from your understanding of the law and your consistent hermeneutic rather than the syntax of the text. That would seem to me to be letting doctrinal bias override what is basically a straightforward sentence. I’m sure you know that none of us truly approaches the text absent any preconceptions. Ἴδιον is only functioning as a marker of indicating “own” as opposed to “other” and is not my primary concern. My concern is rather how it is that the woman is to have (ἐχέτω) the man (τὸν ἄνδρα). You can have your hermeneutic inform your translation, but I would submit that where a hermeneutic ends up making the language say something completely other than what it does, then then perhaps some tweaking of the hermeneutic is in order.
• 33 minutes ago
@mattmangum980 Thank you very much. This helps me a great deal. I'll complete a reply after Shabbat.
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