Tonight I will be leading my Acts-Revelation class through the magnificent glories of Galatians. This will include, of course, a brief excursion into the ever-riveting subjective genitive versus objective genitive debate.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, this post is for you.
If you know what I’m talking about and have to figure out how to teach this idea to students who don’t know Greek, this post is even more for you.
I’ve found that I really only have one weapon in my arsenal sufficient to the task of helping my students get their minds around the translation problems that beset Galatians 2:16. It is a tool that was delivered to my mailbox, free of charge, when I was a student at Westminster Seminary.
Here it is:
You can imagine the excitement I felt upon receiving such a book. At last! Someone who has the chutzpah to write an honest history of American Presbyterianism! A book about how we Presbies have done nothing but worship the English Puritans from the time we set foot in this country!
How disappointed I was to flip open the volume and discover that it was not, in fact, a book about how we Americans had worshiped the English Puritans, but was rather about how the English Puritans had worshiped God.
I had been deliriously happy at the thought of the Puritans being the object of the verbal noun “worship;” and deflated by the realization that they were, in fact, the subject of the implied noun instead.
In Greek, this sort of construction would have been done with a genitive case, and described as either an “objective genitive” (Puritans are the object of worship) or a “subjective genitive” (they are the subjects who worship).
And in Galatians 2:16 and elsewhere we have to decide whether the expression “faith of Jesus Christ” means faith that we place in Jesus Christ (objective genitive, like worshiping the Puritans) or faith that Jesus Christ himself exercises (subjective genitive, like the Puritans worshiping God).
Knowing that a person is not justified by works of Torah but rather through the faith of Jesus Christ (ours in him, = faith in Jesus Christ; or, Christ’s faith?), even we have believed…
There’s the problem. Solve as you will.
But for my part, I’ve already been burned by the objective genitive once… Not doing that again…
As Joel Marcus said at the most recent Duke NT Colloquium: “Is it a subjective genitive or an objective genitive? I don’t know, and I don’t think a greek hearer of the text would think in such a dichotomy anyway.”
I too have been burned by the objective genitive … “at many time and in various ways,” to take a verse from Hebrews out of context and use it for my own benefit, not unlike, the objective seems to insinuate.
Awesome.
I love it. I saw the title of that book and immediately thought, “Who in the world would worship the English Puritans? Oh! I get it!”
I was actually just last week thinking about Gal 2:16 for no good reason. And I’ve decided, once and for all (for now), on it being an objective genitive. This mostly has to do with John’s assertions about truth as it relates to salvation.
Standing before Pilate, Jesus says that he had come to testify to the truth (Jn 18:37). This echoes a statement earlier about Jesus’ purposes: “For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (Jn 3:17). Elsewhere in John, there’s the bit about the truth setting people free, which John strongly links with belief in Jesus and obedience to his words (Jn 8:31-2).
Anyway, here’s the leap I made the other day. No one is saved simply by the fact that the truth is out there (Mulder). Rather, one must believe and thereby live in accordance with this truth. And what is faith, really, if it is not living according to certain perceived reality (Jas 2:18)?
By we are justified (or vindicated if your a Wright fan) by placing faith in the notion that Jesus really is who he says he is and living accordingly.
And of course we are able to place faith in Jesus precisely because of the faith of Jesus.
Please note: I reserve the right to change my mind tomorrow.
Mike, a few thoughts: (1) I try not to let John tell me what Paul means. The struggle to give Paul his own voice, John his own, etc., and respect the integrity of the author and the text is the good fight I must continue to fight!
(2) Ed Sanders, and objective genitive guy, used to say, “Both believe both.” Even with the subjective genitive reading in Gal 2:16a and c, there’s still the verbal form “believe into Jesus” in 2:16b. Death of Jesus, plus union with Christ in that death by faith, spirit, and baptism, equals justification.
Does it matter one iota? What would Athanasius say?
I’m with you, Rich. Athenasius doesn’t matter one iota…
I have a question about the whole situation: what is meant by “faith of Christ”?
If it is speaking loosely of “faithfulness” in the sense the “righteousness of God” is sometimes meant as “God’s faithfulness to His promises,” then I see no problem translating it either way.
If, however, it is speaking of “faith of Christ” in the sense Jesus needed the Hebrews 11 type of faith, then that cannot work. Jesus being God doesn’t have or need faith, and it’s heresy to suggest He does. Thus, if *this* is what the debate is about, then orthodox theology gives us the correct answer: “our faith in Christ.”
One cannot divorce theology from translation/exegesis, else you reduce translation to a purely secular science and the Bible an uninspired and man-made book.
Another angle that I’d guess a lot of Protestants take (and makes sense) is that Paul is always contrasting our faith to observance of the Torah, thus “faith of Christ” would be dubious.
I’m fairly certain that everything Jesus did was by faith. I think he’d fit quite nicely in the Hebrews 11 list. I’m willing to be corrected if I’m wrong, but I don’t think it’s heresy.
Actually, Heb 12 says that it was Christ’s faith first! He is the archegos and perfecter of our faith. He learned obedience, too. And, there’s Rom 1:17/ Hab 2:4, the Righteous One lives by faith.
Nick, see above. The whole point of Heb 11 is that this is nothing less than pictures of faith that is first and foremost Christ’s own.
I don’t see Christ mentioned or even alluded to as the focus of Hebrews 11, and Hebrews 12 says Christ is the founder and finisher of our faith, not that this applies to him. If Jesus had faith just like us, then He’s essentially no different than the OT prophets, who were humans but were given certain revelations that surpassed their understanding but were to still be believed in.
I think the problem here is not taking into consideration Christ’s Divinity at all in such investigations. If Jesus already knows and understands all Divine Truths, if “no man has seen the Father except the Son,” then faith has no place for Him. Faith is a temporary tool God gives men to accept Divine Truths that they by nature cannot fully fathom and cannot yet see. In Heaven, you no longer believe God exists, since at that point you’re enabled to see Him in a radically new and more excellent way.
Here is a link showing the Catholic view from St Thomas Aquinas:
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4007.htm#article3
To go around saying Christ had faith (in the Heb 11 sense) is to strip Christ of His Divinity.
I’d think that the obvious rejoinder is that if Jesus didn’t exercise faith he wasn’t truly human. Gethsemane’s struggle would be one place to see that Jesus had to act in faith.
I don’t think exercising faith and being human are absolutely tied together; lots of people don’t have faith and are still human. Also, I think one of the main issues here is how we’re defining “faith.” The Faith of Heb 11 is believing in divine truths beyond what humans can do naturally. Jesus didn’t need to believe God exists nor that creation was made ex-nihilo nor that angels and such exist, since He knows they do in virtue of Him being Divine.
Regarding Gethsemane, there is a sense in which Christ could have hope, which I think would address your point (since hope is the real issue there), since He was looking forward to something He did not have (e.g. a glorified body).
Is there a possible angle of approach in Paul’s use of the genitive in the same verse i.e. “works of Torah”? (I know, not unless we imagine the Torah as capable of supporting both an objective and a subjective sense).
But if we hold that there is no longer justification by “works” as revealed in/by the Torah (circumcision, diet, washing, rites of atonement, etc.), but that justification is now through faith as revealed in/by Jesus…?
In Norwegian, which is my mother tongue, all major translations tend to translate these genitives with Norwegian genitives, which are mainly possessive. This makes what is perfectly intelligible in Greek vaguely unintelligible in Norwegian.
For instance, The Gospel of Christ can be both ‘the gospel about Christ’ (objective) or Jesus’ own preaching (subjective). Translating this phrase as a possessive genitive shifts the focus to the Gospel as a kind of intellectual property, which belongs to Christ. In context, this is hardly ever the case.
Norwegian uses compounds more frequently than English. This makes it possible to translate most subjective and objective genitives as compounds: ‘Christgospel’, retaining the ambiguity. Sadly, this option is rarely used because our translations nowadays are governed by principles which favour parallel structures, thereby creating shifts in meaning the translators seem unaware of.
And as for the above discussion on the faith of Jesus, I think part of the clue might be that the NT concept of faith is wider than the current Protestant concept, which favours the intellectual side of faith, faith as a decision or brings with itself belief in the work of Jesus as faith’s object even in contexts where this isn’t as obvious as our instincts might suggest. Working on the concept of faith in the Gospels is a fruitful and thought-provoking exercise, even beyond genitives.