Troy Salinger - 2 Peter 1:1, Titus 2:13 And The Granville Sharp Rule – A New Approach

Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
EXTRACTING THE MAJOR NEW CONTRIBUTIONS

Dr. Calvin Winstanley, a contemporary of Sharp and a trinitarian scholar, wrote a treatise1 opposing Sharp’s rule, in which he cited many exceptions to the rule he found in the writings of the church fathers and in secular Greek writings.

...


Moulton and Turner, in discussing these two passages in A Grammar of New Testament Greek, stated: “In Hellenistic, and indeed for practical purposes in classical Greek, the repetition of the article was not strictly necessary to ensure that the items be considered separately.” Dr. Turner further stated in Grammatical Insights into the New Testament: “Unfortunately, at this period of Greek we cannot be sure that such a rule [regarding the article] is really decisive. Sometimes the definite article is not repeated even where there is clearly a separation in idea.”

...

It is also worthy to note that Sharp advocated for an alteration of eight verses in the NT, touching on christology, based on his rule, which would explicitly designate Jesus as our God. Yet in the intervening years, subsequent English versions have largely not followed Sharp’s suggestions in these passages, with the exception of Titus 2:13 and 1 Peter 1:1. Edward D. Andrews, CEO and President of Christian Publishing House and Chief Translator of the Updated American Standard Version, himself a confessed trinitarian, has written an article on the Christian Publishing House Blog demonstrating why Sharp’s rule should not be the deciding factor in how these passages are translated.2

....

an article titled Sharp Redivivus? – A Reexamination of the Granville Sharp Rule, in which he presents a formidable defense of the GSR. In this article Wallace addresses four categories of exceptions to Sharp’s rule found by Dr. Winstanley in ancient Greek writings outside of the NT. For each of these exceptions Wallace then modifies the rule to exclude them from its scope. For instance, one category is that of nouns that, though singular, are generic. Wallace’s solution:

“We might, however, in light of Winstanley’s exceptions, modify Sharp’s rule to say both that nouns which are plural syntactically and those which are plural semantically (i.e., generic nouns) are not within the purview of the rule. Another way to put this is that Sharp’s rule applies only to nouns which have an individual referent, as opposed to a class or group.”
Click to expand...

Winstanley also pointed out an example from the LXX of Prov. 24:21, which reads, “Fear God . . . and the king.” In the Greek there is no article before ‘king’ and so it follows Sharp’s rule of a TSKS construction, yet involves two referents. Wallace does acknowledge this as a true exception but exempts it on the basis that the LXX is “translation Greek”:

“Thus, we might modify Sharp’s rule still further by saying that sometimes (once—so far) translation Greek will violate the rule, if the base language has a contrary construction.”
Click to expand...

Another exception found by Winstanley was from Herodotus’ Histories which reads, “the cup-bearer and cook and groom and servant and messenger.” Here the first personal noun has the article but the subsequent ones do not. Wallace simply modifies the rule further:

“We might therefore, in refining Sharp’s rule still further, add that where several nouns are involved in the construction it may or may not follow the rule.”
Click to expand...


(bold added)

So it seems that whenever exceptions to the GSR are found, Wallace’s mode of dealing with them is to fit them into a category which can be exempted from the rule. Now I am not saying that this is totally without warrant but it does seem just a bit contrived.
 
Last edited:
Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
In his article, Wallace next deals with the eight christologically significant passages for which Sharp proposed a revision. Here’s what he said:

“Sharp invoked dubious textual variants in four of the eight texts to support his rule (Acts 8:28; 1 Tim 5:21; 2 Tim 4:1; Jude 1). As well, in 1 Tim 5:21 and 2 Tim 4:1, if the almost certainly authentic reading of τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ (for τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ κυρίου Χριστοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ) is accepted, then the text can also be dispensed with, for “Christ Jesus” is surely a proper name, and thus does not fall within the limitations of Sharp’s rule. Further, two other passages seem to involve proper names. Second Thessalonians 1:12 does not have merely “Lord” in the equation, but “Lord Jesus Christ.” Only by detaching κυρίου from Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ could one apply Sharp’s rule to this construction. Ephesians 5:5 has the name “Christ” in the equation, though one would be hard-pressed to view this as less than a proper name in the epistles.” This leaves two passages, Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1, which have escaped the difficulties of textual uncertainty and the charge of disqualification via proper names.
Click to expand...

So Wallace excludes six of the eight passages as not falling under Sharp’s rule because they are either dependent upon textual variants or they include proper nouns. This leaves us with our two passages, which he thinks fits the GSR. He then goes on to show the validity of the rule in the case of these passages. But wait a minute! Am I missing something here? How can Wallace say that 2 Thess. 1:12 is beyond the scope of Sharp’s rule because the name Jesus Christ is attached to the title Lord but then admit Titus 2:13 and 1 Pet. 1:1 where the name Jesus Christ is attached to the title Savior. In fact, 2 Thess. 1:12 and 2 Pet. 1:1 are grammatically identical except for the different titles attached to the name Jesus Christ:


2 Thess. 1:12 – τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.
2 Pet. 1:1 – τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ σωτῆρος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ·

So why does Wallace see a difference between these two verses? He doesn’t even touch on it in the article, as if he was unaware of the contradiction. But Wallace is certainly correct in the case of 2 Thess. 1:12, that because the name Jesus Christ is attached to the title Lord, a single referent cannot be maintained. Indeed, most reputable English versions translate the verse as implying two referents, including the NIV, ESV, NASB, KJV, HCSB, NET, ASV, ERV. So then why cannot the same be said of 2 Pet.1:1? Yet every one of these same versions, with the exception of the KJV and ASV, translate 2 Pet. 1:1 as if only one referent were in view. This is certainly an inconsistency in these translations. I can only guess that the reasoning behind this lies in the presupposition that the word Savior in 1 Pet. 1:1, rather than being attached to the name Jesus Christ, is instead to be joined to our God.


What I now propose is a further modification of the GSR, another category that should be considered exempt from it’s scope. Here is the new category:

Any TSKS construction found in the NT where the first noun is God and the second noun is a title, with or without a 1st person possessive pronoun, followed immediately by the name Jesus Christ.

So then 2 Thess. 1:12, Titus 2:13 and 2 Pet. 1:1 would all be exempt from Sharp’s so called rule. Now surely someone is bound to object on the grounds that such a limitation to Sharp’s rule is certainly arbitrary and biased. But I don’t think that is the case. The fact of the matter is that in these types of passages, where there seems to be some ambiguity in the Greek construction as to whether or not Jesus is being equated with the God, it is not grammar alone which is the deciding factor. Dr Winstanley put it this way:

======================

Troy then goes into this in more depth.
 
Last edited:
Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
NOTES :
there are many more "exceptions" that we cover on other pages.
We had a lot of fun with the exception lists on CARM some years back!

And the definitional ambiguities like "proper noun", which on examination sink the whole Sharp ship.

===================

For what he covers, Troy gets an A-1, since he dug out Winstanley and he showed the selective nature of discarding all the Sharp verses but two.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top