There are several difficulties in this verse that have left me bewildered, but finding a definitive answer to this basic question about the syntax, if such a thing is possible, would help considerably to clear up the other doubts as well.
The whole verse reads, adopting what seems to be the accepted punctuation:
ἢ δοκεῖτε ὅτι κενῶς ἡ γραφὴ λέγει, πρὸς φθόνον ἐπιποθεῖ τὸ πνεῦμα ὃ κατῴκισεν ἐν ἡμῖν;
The published translations vary widely. Several Bibles, in fact, give an alternative translation in a footnote, or even two alternative translations. Three examples:
Jerusalem Bible, 1966:
(1 a) Surely you don’t think scripture is wrong when it says: the spirit which he sent to live in us wants us for himself alone?
(1 b) ... the spirit he has made to dwell in us yearns for our love
(1 c) ... he yearns intensely over the spirit he has made to dwell in us
New International Version, 1983:
(2 a) Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?
(2 b) ... that God jealously longs for the spirit that he made to live in us
(2 c) ... that the spirit he caused to live in us longs jealously
Good News Bible, 1992:
(3 a) Don’t think that there is no truth in the scripture that says, “The spirit that God placed in us is filled with fierce desires.”
(3 b) ... “God yearns jealously over the spirit he has placed in us.”
In five of these eight examples the translators have seen the spirit as the subject of the verb (1 a, 1 b, 2 a, 2 c, 3 a) and in the other three as the object. When they have seen it as the object, they have found themselves obliged to supply a missing subject, filling in the blank space with “God” or simply “he”. In contrast, when they have seen the spirit as the subject, only the JB has attempted to supply a missing object. In the NIV, a transitive verb deprived of its object has been left dangling. The reader is left to puzzle out, if he can, who or what it is that the spirit “envies intensely” or “longs [for] jealously”. The GNB sidesteps the embarrassing omission by opting for an elegant circumlocution, “is filled with fierce desires”.
All these quibbles could be easily settled, of course, if only we knew the context of the γραφὴ that James is quoting here. Unfortunately, it remains untraced. In the words of the New Jerome Biblical Commentary, “No such text can be found in the OT. James may be quoting an apocryphal work or a lost variant from a Gk OT version.”
So which would you say is the better answer, subject or object?
Statistics: Posted by BrianB — Sat Jul 06, 2024 3:48 pm