Articular Infinitives and 1 Corinthians 10:13

Blogger Note: this was originally posted on Saturday, November 4. However, the post was lost by some blogger-problem that I don't understand, but was miraculously saved by Isaac. Thanks Isaac, the blogosphere can now rest well.

About once a month I get together with a few friends on a Saturday morning for what we have come to call "Greek Geek" time. We preselect a text from the NT to translate on our own then come together to work through it. We discuss mostly grammar, some theology and hermeneutics, and even the occasional textual variant. It's a great time for a geek such as myself. There's something about struggling through a text that makes you appreciate it a bit more. I love how it makes me slow down and think about what the author is trying to say. I'm sad to say it, but I've read through parts of the Bible so many times over the years (in English) that I've grown accustomed to the phrasings and teachings. It's easy to skim over something. But when you work with the original languages, it forces you to plod and fight for every inch of understanding. At least it does for me.

For our 1st meeting we had translated 2 John (that's right, an entire book!), for our 2nd it was Matthew 28 (gotta have some narrative in there), and for this morning it was 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 (we'll finish the chapter later). I always learn something new, or I see something that I never noticed before. Such was the case for me in 1 Corinthians 10:13.

Let me give you a woodenly literal translation of the second part of the verse: "...Who will not permit you to be tempted over what you are able but will give with the temptation also the way out to be able to endure." You could smooth it out to the NIV (cf. TNIV, HCSB, NET): "...he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." Notice something different between the two, in the Greek there is an article before "way out" (see NAS, ESV, in those it is translated "way of escape"). Now, Greek articles can mean different things, but we'll get to that in a second.

Let me move on to the point (and title) of this post, the articular infinitive (that is, an infinitive that has an article). These are quite common in Greek, they generally denote purpose or result. In Greek there is an article before the infinitive "to be able." Every translation that I've seen takes this as an articular infinitive denoting purpose, "He will also give with the temptation the way out, in order to be able to endure" is one way to translate it. Anthony Thiselton gives us a nice smooth translation reflecting this grammatical choice, "Now God is faithful: he will not allow you to be tempted beyond your powers, but he will make an exit path alongside the temptation. His purpose in this is for you to bear up under it" (pg 719- I love the internet, instead of typing out all the publication information I can simply link and give the page number!).

This is how I understood it the first time I went through the passage (and we have an articular infinitive with a preposition denoting purpose in v6, by the way). However, as I thought about the article before "way out" I rethought the infinitive here as well. Another grammatical possibility is that it is used as an apposition. Appositives are common in our everyday language, "my Greek Geek friend, Brian" is an example. "Brian" further defines "my Greek Geek friend." There are all sorts of uses, "God's favorite baseball team, the Red Sox, won the World Series in 2004" and so on. Our good friends at Dictionary.com gives us this definition of apposition: "Grammar. a syntactic relation between expressions, usually consecutive, that have the same function and the same relation to other elements in the sentence, the second expression identifying or supplementing the first. In Washington, our first president, the phrase our first president is in apposition with Washington." I apologize for the American-centric example here, for those across the pond or up North I hope you can practice your contextualization skills.

So, if we were to read the articular infinitive in this way, it would be something like this "He will also give with the temptation the way out, that is, to be able to endure." The ability to endure is the way out. "To be able to endure" further defines what Paul meant by "the way out."

So what does this have to do with the definite article before "way out"? First, I think there is some importance to Paul using an article here. He didn't have to, but it makes sense given the fact he uses an article with "the temptation" as well. (By the way, I think God giving us temptation is worthy of a post of its own, someone should really take that up). Paul wanted to point out a specific way out for his readers, not just any way out. Hence the use of the article.

My boy Gordon Fee notes this as well, but doesn't say too much about it (461 n57). It seems Fee takes it as nothing more than individualizing the noun- with each temptation there is a corresponding way out. I tend to see it more as kataphoric (I love that word, it simply means "refering to what follows" or something like that). In other words, "the way out" refers to something that will be specified, like with an appositional articular infinitive. The article before "temptation" would be anaphoric (refering to something previously stated, in this the whole discussion of temptation in v13 prior to this). If you're in the mood, check out Daniel Wallace's greek grammar for a good discussion on the Greek article (a mere 85 pages or so!).

I realize this is tedious and largely uninteresting, but the use of the article makes me think about what Paul is trying to say here about the way out of temptation. My suggestions here are certainly grammatically possible, what I'm trying to figure out is if they are likely. Is Paul saying here that the way out of the temptation "common to humankind" is to be able to endure? Anybody have any thoughts on this?