Is CAI Qualified to Address Issues of the Greek Text

Reports of the Witch's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

For those of you who have no idea what this title is all about, it is a spoof on the title of a recent article by Robert Sungenis, "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead." As one of my colleagues has pointed out, Sungenis has a fondness for cheesiness, and this one takes the cake. Of course, the reference is clear enough; but how it relates to my thesis on heos hou is unclear. The only way I can make sense of the phrase is that my heos hou thesis terrorized the Roman Catholic community in the same way that the Wicked Witch terrorized the Munchkins in the land of Oz, who then rejoiced with dancing on discovering she was dead. I suppose that is a backhanded compliment of sorts—I just had no idea my thesis had such an impact on the fears of Roman Catholic apologists. For those of you in the Roman Catholic community who were finally able to catch up on long-lost sleep, I'm afraid I don't have good news for you. In the words of Mark Twain, "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." The witch isn't dead after all.

Apologetics is exhausting and time-consuming work. Five percent of your time is spent propagating the truth, and the other 95% is spent defending your work and correcting the errors, misrepresentations, mischaracterizations—and, yes, lies—of those who seemingly have dedicated their very lives to distorting the truth and deceiving the uninformed. They always seem to come up with an “answer” to any truth statement issued from the Evangelical side. As I’ve indicated in previous articles, however, “answers” are not to be equated with meaningful and substantive responses. The former flows like water over the Niagara in the Roman Catholic apologetic world, while the latter always seems to be conspicuously absent. I have to admit frankly, I do not relish this part of my ministry. It is tedious, time-consuming, and, more often than not, results in even more distortions from the Roman Catholic camp that must be corrected.

The latest illustration of this comes to us in the form of a plethora of articles written by Roman Catholic epologists responding to my thesis regarding the phrase heos hou in Matthew 1:25. Most of these articles have come from Robert Sungenis, and a few others from one of his sidekick spin-offs, John Pacheco. I will be responding to Sungenis’ latest tripe (sorry, there’s just no other, more appropriate word to describe his ramblings) while largely ignoring the writings of his spin-off—since I do not consider his spin-off even remotely qualified to address issues regarding the Greek text, I won’t be responding to his articles in full. His name came up in a recent discussion James White and I had with Gerry Matatics on the Dividing Line program, in which Gerry Matatics touted a recent article that John Pacheco, a man who has absolutely no knowledge of the Greek language, wrote in response to my thesis. I don’t wish to dignify the work of someone who is simply way in over his head on this issue by issuing a full response. It would be a huge waste of my time—of which I have precious little—to answer every hothead with an AOL account and a keyboard who happens to take issue with my work. I will, however, interact with his so-called “survey of scholars,” and provide one or two examples of just why his writings are unworthy of lengthy comment. These should sufficiently illustrate his ineptness not only with the Greek language but also with understanding the comments of Greek scholars whom he thinks support his contention. Below are a few excerpts from Pacheco’s articles, followed by my comments:

In doing research on this question, including the academic and scholar survey which I conducted, without prejudice I came across no source (other than Svendsen's book endorsements and his doctoral committee) which lent the least bit of support to his thesis. Not one.

Of course we can take Pacheco’s statement “without prejudice” with a grain of salt. I think we all know that anyone who assigns a “Project Patroness” to his book—namely, “Mary under her title as Mother of God”—can hardly be accused of impartiality. Be that as it may, let’s look at the quotes from these scholars, as well as the misguided inquiry that gathered them.

The first observation to make about Pacheco’s list of scholars is that none of them—not one—gives any evidence he has read my work. Nor is there any evidence that Pacheco represented my arguments and evidence fairly—in fact, I will show that the evidence points otherwise. Why is this significant? Simply stated, apart from the opportunity to examine the evidence regarding any Greek construction, all scholars—without exception—will naturally default to the simplest explanation; namely, what that construction should mean based solely on what they’ve always understood that part of speech to mean. Before Granville Sharp discovered the pattern regarding the construction of two nouns governed by a single article and separated by kai, no scholars, if asked, would have seen special significance in that construction. Before McGaughy discovered the pattern regarding the construction of einai connecting two substantives, no scholars, if asked, would have seen special significance in that construction. Before Porter discovered the idea that the relative “baggage” of a word determines whether it is being emphasized by the writer or placed in the background, no scholars, if asked, would have seen special significance in that theory. Before Moeller/Kramer discovered the pattern regarding consecutive accusative substantives, no scholars, if asked, would have seen special significance in that construction.

But that’s the whole point of Greek studies. If all the rules for Greek grammar had already been discovered and neatly laid out, there would be absolutely no need for anyone to pursue Greek studies any further. We should simply be able to turn to one source to answer any and every question regarding the Greek language. Such a source, of course, does not exist, and never will. The fact is, these kinds of observations about patterns in the Greek language are being made daily—and no one scholar can possibly know apart from looking at the primary research whether his preconceived notions regarding a specific Greek construction is all there is to say about it. Hence, it cannot be emphasized enough that for Pacheco, Sungenis, Matatics—or any other Roman Catholic epologist for that matter (David Palm has apparently thrown his hat into the ring on this one as well)—to pose these kinds of questions to Greek scholars, without providing them a copy of the primary research, is lamentable and simply serves further to illustrate how little these men know about how New Testament exegesis is done.

Having said that, there is another notable error in Pacheco’s inquiry; namely, in the majority of instances, he seeks counsel from (1) those who are scholars, but are neither Greek scholars nor New Testament scholars, (2) those who have a reputation even within Roman Catholic scholarship as being a combination of Roman Catholic scholar/apologist, or (3) those whose credentials for speaking on these issues is suspect at best. As an example of (1) and (2) is Francis J. Moloney, who is not a Greek scholar, but who is in fact a dyed-in-the-wool Roman Catholic apologist within Roman Catholic scholarly circles. I interact with Moloney’s views at length in my book, and it is clear that he is more interested in proof-texting his position than engaging in exegesis. For instance, he champions the idea that Mary’s response to the angel in Luke 1 constitutes a redemptive fiat on Mary’s part, on which the entire world hangs. And his treatment of the word adelphos is standard Roman Catholic fare. On whether adelphos in the New Testament means sibling only or close relative, he writes:

The New Testament text itself is open to either interpretation. The Church’s traditional teaching on the perpetual virginity of Mary must guide both the faithful and the exegete in their interpretation of these passages” (Mary: Woman and Mother [Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1988], 7 n. 10).

Yet, he is contradicted by his Roman Catholic betters, including J.A. Fitzmyer, John McKenzie and J. P. Meier, all of whom recognize that the New Testament usage of aldelphos excludes the Roman Catholic interpretation of the “brothers” and “sisters” of Jesus. This has implications as well for the claim by Roman Catholic apologists (including Sungenis) who think that we must rely on the LXX to ascertain the meaning of heos hou for the New Testament era. We will return to this point later. Suffice it to say that I take Moloney to task on a number of issues like this in my book.

Also in the categories of (1) and (2) falls Edward L. Bode. The most a Google search yields about him is found in this link http://www.abebooks.com/home/LHIND/, which indicates he is a Roman Catholic “book specialist.” He also comes up as a contributor to articles on various religious themes; but absolutely nothing leads us to consider him an expert on Greek in general or on this issue in particular. Certainly, he is not among those New Testament scholars who are embroiled in the Marian debate. Yet, Pacheco quotes him as saying:

In Matthew 1:25, the meaning must take into account the context. Here the evangelist is emphasizing that Joseph is not the biological father of Jesus; this meaning does not imply or suggest that sexual activity took place after the birth of Jesus.

But this is flatly contradicted by the opinions of known New Testament scholars who have publicly weighed in on the meaning of Matt 1:25 as it pertains to the extent of Mary’s virginity, such as F. D. Brunner, R. T. France, A. H. M’Neile, and, to some extent, Craig Blomberg (who prefers to state that the phrase “strongly suggests” an end to Mary’s virginity). Hence, Bode’s assessment of this phrase is uninformed, even if we were to exclude any consideration of my research. Beyond that, we just do not know who Bode is, or why Pacheco thinks his opinion on this issue matters.

The next citation is from Robert Hull, who candidly admits: “I have not done the necessary research to align myself with one or the other side in this debate.” He goes on to state:

In general, I am very wary of arguments that depend heavily or exclusively on linguistic or syntactical uses to prove a point. Context is so heavily involved in making meaning that we would be ill-advised to try to establish an ironclad rule for the use of particles--at least unless we had a staggering number of examples." - Dr. Robert F. Hull Jr., M.Div, Ph.D, Professor of New Testament, Emmanuel School of Religion

I am sympathetic to Hull’s position on this. Without having seen the research itself, or the commendations of the research of the type issued by the endorsers of my work, I too would be wary of claims regarding what the Greek text implies. Indeed, I can see myself echoing Hull’s caveat verbatim on a number of claims I’ve seen regarding the Greek text. Context is heavily involved in making these decisions, which is why I thoroughly examined the context of each passage in question. And I also agree that it is difficult to label these kinds of Greek rules “iron clad” without a significant number of examples (which I happen to have for the construction under consideration). Hull is simply exercising the prudence with which any scholar should approach these things.

What is striking, however, is that Hull dismisses neither the possibility of my thesis nor the legitimacy of my approach. In other words, he recognizes there is nothing inherently peculiar about the methodology I used, and his sole caveat is that he would like to examine the research for himself before deciding—not an unreasonable request for a scholar. This quotation not only provides null support for Pacheco’s view, but it actually assumes the validity of the methodology I used—which is really what is at issue in the Roman Catholic objection, not so much the results of that methodology; that is, the hard evidence itself, which is both undeniable and decidedly against the Roman Catholic position.

Pacheco’s next citation is from Kim Paffenroth, a professor at Iona College (and formerly at Villanova University

One should always be suspicious of a linguistic argument that is coincidentally being used to further a sectarian position. Omitting LXX texts from consideration is especially arbitrary. It seems an enormously fine distinction to distinguish different ways a preposition is used to connect two clauses, then count the number of occurrences to draw a conclusion about its meaning in one particular instance - prepositions are the most notoriously ambiguous and flexible words in any language. This makes it doubly seem ideologically and not exegetically driven." - Dr. Kim Paffenroth, M.T.S., Ph.D.

I have to point out upfront the first indication that Pacheco has misrepresented my argument to these scholars; namely, that I “omit LXX texts from consideration.” I do nothing of the kind. Indeed, I have an entire chapter devoted to it, not to mention an appendix. If Pacheco knew anything of my views on this, he would know the point I make regarding the LXX is that the usage his denomination needs for Matt 1:25 was in use at one time, but gradually fell out of common usage, as all the evidence suggests. Even in the LXX, the phrase is used only a handful of times in the way Pacheco needs. Sadly, he demonstrates that he doesn’t understand this point, doubtless leaving the impression with these scholars that I simply ignored the LXX, didn’t do the proper research on it, and arrived at hasty conclusions. It is little wonder, then, that these scholars would caution the reader as they do. I will address this point again when interacting with Sungenis’ statements, which are just as misinformed. In the meantime, back to Paffenroth.

Paffenroth is a “Fellow in Core Humanities,” and his expertise in New Testament studies seems to be limited to teaching first-year students a “Core Humanities Seminar,” and helping to write the New Testament part of the faculty manual. We’re left wondering just why Pacheco thinks this scholar’s opinion of this issue should be given the weight Pacheco wants to give it. Be that as it may, Paffenroth’s advice—“one should always be suspicious of a linguistic argument that is coincidentally being used to further a sectarian position”—is only partially right inasmuch as it ignores the development of other established rules of Greek grammar. Both Granville Sharp’s rule and Colwell’s rule (to name only two) were established from a “sectarian” polemic to advance biblical support for the deity of Christ. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this approach if the starting belief is correct. And if it’s not correct, it will be demonstrated as such by the research. Indeed, that is what the research is for—to test sectarian truth claims against the observable usage of grammar. Hence, Paffenroth’s advice is more appropriately stated in the converse; one should always be suspicious of resistance against a linguistic argument if that resistance is coincidentally being used to uphold a sectarian position.

Pacheco’s next quotation comes from James. P.M. Walsh:

It's essentially a non-problem. I assume the latter (or substitutes, e.g., heõs hotou) prevails in NT Koine and presumably what is missing in such expressions is a noun like chronou, ‘until such time as . . .’. The real issue, as I see it, has nothing to do with the alleged fine distinctions between heõs and heõs hou, but with the verb tenses and/or moods used in the various heõs hou clauses. It is these that may shift the meaning of heõs hou, which is simply (after all) an expansion of heõs which would have been adequate in and of itself in any of these expressions. - Rev. James. P.M. Walsh, S.J., B.D., Ph.L., Ph.D., NAB OT Rev. Comm.

Walsh, another Roman Catholic (this time also a Jesuit priest), is Associate Professor of Theology at Georgetown University (a Jesuit school); once again, a theologian—and a Jesuit at that—not a New Testament or Greek scholar. Again, we must ask just why Pacheco thinks the opinion of someone who is neither a Greek scholar nor a New Testament exegete—nor even involved in the finer points of this debate—should be given a weight equal to those who are involved in this. The greater question for Pacheco regarding all these scholars, however, is why Pacheco thinks they would be able to answer this question without evaluating the research for themselves, as Dr. Hull admitted above that we would need to do before issuing a judgment?

Pacheco’s next quote comes from Robert North:

"As in English, the Greek (or any other) word for 'until' (or 'while' or 'as long as') may imply either 'and then it stopped' or 'whether or not it continued after that', depending to some extent on the context. [It depends], inevitably, to some extent on the expectations or convictions of the reader, especially if of profound religious importance. Hence, I would have to give you two warnings: (1) no statistic or tabulation will ever succeed in eliminating completely the innate ambiguity in relation to the reader's Vorverstaendnis or expectations; (2) You must be intensely on guard against being influenced in any conclusions from your statistic which are frankly or subconsciously anticipated or hoped." - Rev. Robert North, S.J., M.A., S.S.D., Editor, Elenchus of Biblica.

We’re treated here to the opinion of an OT scholar who wrote the commentaries on 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah in the New Jerome Biblical Commentary. This time Pacheco has at least landed someone who is an expert in biblical exegesis, even if he is still not a New Testament scholar. What is striking, however, is that once again (as was the case with Hull above) we are not told that the methodology I used (not really mine, but in actuality the methodology of New Testament exegesis) is somehow invalid. Rather, we are cautioned with the same kinds of caveats that Hull provided. One suspects that these scholars, if given the opportunity to see the actual research, would both see the strength of the thesis and be reassured that proper caution has been diligently exercised throughout.

I freely concede in my book (all the misrepresentations of my views by Pacheco and Sungenis notwithstanding) that if a clear example of this usage can be found in the literature of Matthew’s own day, then Roman Catholics may have a case for their understanding of Matt 1:25. But even then, the Roman Catholic interpretation would simply move from the realm of exceedingly improbable to the realm of highly improbable. It would be a remarkable admission, indeed, for someone candidly to assert that his dogmatic belief is based on improbabilities regarding the Greek language. Yet, that is the most the discovery of one contrary instance of this phrase will yield the Roman Catholic position. Unfortunately for the Roman Catholic apologist, we still have found no such instance (not withstanding the recent assertions by this group to the contrary, for which see below). Hence, so far as the philological evidence suggests, the Roman Catholic position remains beyond the realm of high improbabilities.

Pacheco’s next scholar is Dennis Hamm, yet another Roman Catholic and Jesuit priest:

The context of Matthew 1:25 implies the author is interested in asserting the virginal conception of Jesus, not in asserting anything about what happened after his birth. - Fr. Dennis Hamm, S.J., M.A., Ph.L., Ph.D., Professor of Theology, Creighton University

Context (not grammatical usage) is the sole criterion considered by this scholar, when the question is specifically about the use of the Greek construction. Of course the context is that Matthew wants us to know that Mary and Joseph refrained from engaging in sexual relations before the birth of Jesus; that goes without saying. My thesis is that the grammatical construction itself tells us a bit more. Unfortunately, this scholar doesn’t comment on that part of it, and so provides no support for Pacheco’s view. And, once again, we are treated to the opinion of a professor of theology; not one of a New Testament exegete.

Pacheco’s next scholar is Dennis Hukel.

Heõs is a preposition meaning 'until', 'up to', 'as far as'. Heõs hou is a prepositional phrase. Since the context indicates this phrase is temporal, the usual meaning is 'until which time'. It is my opinion that his phrase does not relay any information about what happens after the termination of the contextual event (giving birth). It does not say how long Mary remained a virgin after that event. We only know through other passages that Mary did not remain a virgin for a long time because she had at least 4 other sons and 2 daughters. According to custom, there would be a brief waiting period after Jesus' birth, and one would expect Mary and Joseph to consummate their marriage soon after that; but I believe this phrase does not specify that in any grammatical or syntactical way--it is out of view." - Dennis Hukel, Critical Consultant/Translator, Lockman Foundation.

Finally, a Greek scholar and New Testament exegete. Since James White is also a Critical Consultant for the Lockman Foundation he wrote to Dr. Hukel to ask him directly whether he had read my work. Dr. Hukel indicated he had not. He further indicated that he has too much on his plate at the moment to give my work a thorough review. As a relevant side point, Dr. Hukel gives indication in this quote that he dismisses the Roman Catholic view that adelphos/e, in the context of Jesus’ “brothers and sisters,” can mean other than biological siblings. The question is, now that we have the comments of a Greek scholar confirming my thesis on adelphos (that we must take it in the strict sense of biological siblings of Jesus), can we now expect Pacheco, Sungenis, Matatics and company to give up the struggle and accept once and for all that James, Joseph, Simon and Judas were in fact the biological brothers of Jesus? Or, are they simply using these scholars in dishonest ways in an attempt to “win an argument” regarding heos hou, but having absolutely no intention of following through with the implications of these comments on their own position? I think we all know what the answer to that is.

Note well the true ramifications of this scholar’s comments. In an attempt to show that I have no right to “exclude the LXX from consideration” (something I have not done by the way—I have considered all the instance from the LXX, and have shown even there that the usage of heos hou to support the Roman Catholic sense of Matt 1:25 was already rare and giving way to its other meanings that were eventually firmed up by New Testament times), Pacheco has cited someone who has, in essence, “excluded” the LXX use of adelphos from consideration in his view of Jesus’ “brothers.” The irony is rich.

But, as I’ve already pointed out, this scholar has not seen my work. Hence, the most we can say about this quote so far as heos hou is concerned is that we have roughly the same kind of answer one would have received from an eighteenth-century scholar regarding the use of the definite article when governing nouns separated by kai. Unless that scholar had read Granville Sharp’s monograph (“Remarks on the Uses of the Definitive Article in the Greek Text of the New Testament: Containing many New Proofs of the Divinity of Christ, from Passages which are wrongly Translated in the Common English Version”), he would very likely have answered along the same lines as Hull, Hukel and North above, relying on prior conventional knowledge to render an ad hoc judgment on the construction, and warning the inquirer to exercise caution in making too much of these kinds of grammatical relationships. In no case has any of the scholars Pacheco cited read the primary research. On the other hand, every single scholar that has read the research (and commented on it) has been convinced by it (http://www.ntrmin.org/who_is_my_mother.htm). The sole exception to this is Robert Thomas, Professor of New Testament at The Master’s Seminary, who took exception to my non-dispensational exegesis of Revelation 12, and (solely on that basis) opted out of endorsing the work as a whole.

Pacheco’s next scholar is Jason Beduhn:

"In regard to the meaning of heõs hou, there is nothing in this expression itself that explicitly indicates or necessarily implies reversal of action. It simply indicates that something is the case up to a certain point, or 'until' whatever temporal marker is stated following heõs hou. A reversal can be involved, such as in Mt. 17:9 or Mt. 18:34. But heõs hou can also be used to indicate action up to a point of completion, as in Mt. 13:33, or something done by some 'until' others can join in, as in Mt. 14:22, or even something done by some 'while' others do something else, as in Mt. 26:36. In Mt. 1:25, heõs hou is properly translated 'until' because the dependent verb tikto refers to a specific momentary event that marks the end point of the time period under consideration. Joseph refrained from 'knowing' Mary up to the point of her giving birth. What happened after that point is not explicitly addressed in this passage. Nor would I say that what happened afterwards is in any way obviously implied. Rather, the author simply is not concerned with it. He only wants to maintain that there was no sexual intercourse prior to the birth of Jesus, because his concern is solely with addressing questions about Jesus' parentage. Whether or not Joseph and Mary had sexual relations after the birth of Jesus is beyond the scope of interest for the author, and in fact is never addressed in the New Testament. Any argument or claim about this issue is necessarily speculative. We simply do not have the information to state anything conclusively about it.

On this question of the distinction in meaning between heõs hou and heõs alone, we can only talk about tendencies of meaning, not any hard and fast distinction. Heõs alone tends to be used more often for indefinite expressions of time, up to, including, and through the event mentioned following heõs. Heõs hou tends to be used more often of expressions of time up to a specific point, and not including or through that point. But, having said that, we can see examples of heõs used alone that has that same latter function ('until'), as in Mt. 2:15, Mt. 11:13, Mt. 24:39, Mt. 26:29. We even have a case where, in the same passage, heõs hou is used interchangeably with heõs (Mt. 18:30, 34). Heõs hou is sometimes used with the looser meaning 'while' or 'in the meantime' (Mt. 14:22, Mt. 26:36). So the particle hou does not, in itself, determine the meaning of the expression heõs hou. The larger context of the expression heõs hou has that determining function. The expression had a range of usage, and while the inclusion of hou tends towards more specificity of a point of time (as the literal translation 'until when' suggests), it does not always or necessarily have that meaning." - Dr. Jason Beduhn, M.A., Ph.D., Associate Professor Biblical Studies, Northern Arizona University

I want to call attention to three things in this quotation. First, Beduhn’s opening statement—“In regard to the meaning of heõs hou, there is nothing in this expression itself that explicitly indicates or necessarily implies reversal of action”—demonstrates once again that these scholars were not provided with my research, but instead were shown some gross misrepresentation of it. As I have already pointed out in my prior article (http://www.ntrmin.org/where_have_all_the_critics_gone.htm), I nowhere claim that heos hou implies a reversal of action (for the details, see the article). The rest of what Beduhn states in that paragraph confirms my suspicion (particularly the citation of biblical examples where although reversal is not implied, cessation clearly is). That naturally causes me to wonder how many other misrepresentations of my thesis these scholars were provided.

Second, paragraph #2 from the above quote could have been lifted directly from my research, in which I acknowledge each of the points above, though (perhaps due to having conducted the primary research myself) with finer detail and a greater degree of confidence in the categories mentioned. Here, as before, is the case of the scholar who has not been given the opportunity to see the research for himself. Instead, he has been handed mischaracterizations of it by Roman Catholic defenders. As a result, he would quite naturally fall back on general principles regarding particles and conjunctions. It is Granville Sharp all over again.

Third, exceedingly instructive is the fact that Beduhn acknowledges these categories and nuances of heos and heos hou at all. After all, these nuances are not found in a lexicon or grammar, and they come very close to the same distinctions in usage that I personally have observed in my own research. Yet, these are the very distinctions that Pacheco, Sungenis, Matatics and company deny are there. Well, are they there or not? Beduhn thinks they are (as do I), though he hasn’t cited a lexicon or grammar for support (something we’re told by Gerry Matatics and Robert Sungenis is absolutely essential for positing these categories). Again, the question remains, Will Pacheco, Sungenis and Matatics now allow these categories—the very ones I have been insisting are there all along—particularly now that they have a “Greek scholar” to tell them they are legitimate? Or, are they just using these scholars in an attempt to lessen the impact of this construction against their own view, having absolutely no intention of following through with the implications of these comments on their own position? Once again, I think we all know the answer.

Pacheco’s final scholar is Dale C. Allison:

I'm writing a commentary on the Testament of Abraham and looking at all the textual variants regularly. It's absolutely amazing how many times someone thinks a noun should be dative, someone else accusative, how often someone changes a verb ending, etc. The scribes are constantly changing and correcting the grammar of other scribes; that is, these native Greek speakers aren't all following the same rules; what sounds best to one doesn’t sound best to the other. No one was reading Blass Debrunner Funk. It's no different today. Some writers think you can now use a plural verb with a singular noun; others of us think this terrible. Some never end with an infinitive, others don’t care. The rules are artificial secondary constructs that describe, but always imperfectly. Language is always flexible. - Dr. Dale C. Allison, Past Editor, Journal of Biblical Literature.

I have no idea why Pacheco included this quote, since if it destroys the basis for my rule then it also destroys the basis for all rules of Greek grammar. Pacheco has misunderstood Allison’s intent; and if anyone were to ask Allison whether we should now throw out our copy of Blass, Debrunner and Funk, he would be the first to say no. Pacheco seems to think that Allison is suggesting we do away with lexicons, grammars and Greek studies altogether. One can almost hear Pacheco desperately screaming, “Yes! At last, we’ll just chuck all Greek rules and then we won’t have to deal with that nasty Svendsen rule anymore!”

My only response to Allison’s words—Allison’s words rightly understood, that is—is, Amen! I would never claim otherwise for my rule regarding heos hou, nor for the rules of Granville Sharp, Colwell, or Porter. All rules of Greek grammar are established after the fact, and are based on observable and discernable patterns in the language. It’s all fluid, and I don’t claim any more “concreteness” for my rule than there is for any other rule. On the other hand, nothing that Allison has stated here implies that my rule is to be thrown out while all others are left standing. Hence, Allison’s quote does nothing to advance Pacheco’s cause.

Now for a few brief examples of the types of glaring misunderstandings to which Pacheco falls prey. In his “Top 10 Errors” (an article that supposedly exposes errors in my thesis) he has this to say:

In the "Acknowledgements" to his book, Svendsen describes D.A. Carson as "my former mentor, whose excellence in scholarship and style of writing continue to inspire me." Yet, curiously Eric does not seem to share Dr. Carson's view of what constitutes "semantic obsolence". Indeed, Carson readily admits that the Septuagint had a "profound influence" (Exegetical Fallacies, p. 63) on the writing of the New Testament.

Since Pacheco has never sat at the feet of D.A. Carson, I think I’m in just a tad better position to know what Carson intends by this—and I address this in detail toward the close of this article. Suffice it here to say that when Carson speaks of a “profound influence” of the LXX, he has in mind theological terms, not the use of conjunctions and particles. Here’s another of Pacheco’s errors:

In 1999, Svendsen debated Gerry Matatics on Our Lady's perpetual virginity in 1999. In this debate, Svendsen actually addressed the use of achri and achri hou. However, his conclusions were curiously the opposite of what the New Testament has yielded.

First of all, the phrase in question is achri vs. achri hou in the subjunctive, not merely achri hou by itself. Second, if Pacheco were steeped in New Testament scholarship on the Lord’s Supper he would know that the distinctions between these phrases is widely accepted by New Testament scholars who are embroiled in this issue, from Bruce to Marshall, to Jeremias, to Wainwright, to the majority of New Testament scholars that have looked at this. I did my Masters work on this very topic, and have written a book on it—again, much more qualified to speak on this than Pacheco will likely ever be. But, instead of doing the hard work and finding these things out for himself, Pacheco would rather get the argument wrong and then call it an “error” when he can’t find the same thing. Pacheco continues by quoting Raymond Brown:

In English when something is negated until a particular time, occurrence after that time is usually assumed. However, in discussing the Greek heõs hou after a negative...K. Beyer . . . points out that in Greek and Semitic such a negation often has no implication at all about what happened after the limit of the "until" was reached."?

And Beyer is demonstrably wrong. He gets this from Smyth’s grammar (a Classical, not a Koine grammar), and it does not apply to Koine Greek. Indeed, the case is the precise opposite. All one need do is look at every instance of heos hou with the negative to see that I’m right on this. Every instance with the negative implies reversal of the action of the main verb (not simply cessation in this case).

Next, Pacheco refers to something I said in my debate with Gerry Matatics: “Well, that’s not surprising since lexicons do not handle grammatical constructions. They handle words. You’ll find heõs. You’ll find hou. You won’t find heõs hou or any other grammatical construction.” Pacheco then comments:

It is truly puzzling how someone who has completed a doctoral dissertation on this subject, and who has studied this issue as intensely as Eric Svendsen has done, can turn around and make such an amateurish blunder.

Actually, it’s not amateurish at all if one understands my intent and the context in which it is stated. Gerry Matatics insisted we limit ourselves to lexicons to exhaust the meaning of a Greek construction. Lexicons are focused on words, not on grammatical constructions. They are simply not intended to exhaust the usage of a Greek construction. That’s why grammars exist. Heos hou can, of course, be found in lexicons under general headings of heos (as can other grammatical constructions). But a lexicon is not where one goes to determine usage of that Greek construction. That was my point. Unfortunately, in a fast-paced debate, you don’t always have time to clarify your meaning just the way you’d like. One more example will suffice:

Pacheco decides to quote Burton in defense of his position on heos hou:

"In the New Testament heõs is sometimes followed by hou or otou. Heõs is then a preposition governing the genitive of the relative pronoun, but the phrase heõs hou or heõs otou is in effect a compound conjunction having the same force as the simple heõs. The construction following it is also the same, except that [the Greek word] an never occurs after heõs hou or heõs otou." (emphasis added)

The problem with the “emphasis added” part is that Pacheco clearly misreads and misunderstands Burton’s meaning in the same way Sungenis has done. I have already shown in my response to Sungenis that the phrase “the same force,” in context, refers only to how heos is used as a preposition governing the genitive of the relative pronoun. Burton never intended this phrase to be taken as that heos hou has the very same meaning and usage as heos by itself (see my response to Sungenis on this point: http://www.ntrmin.org/sungenis_and_heos_hou_2.htm). Indeed, in Pacheco’s “survey of scholars,” one or two of them in fact say there is a difference in usage; and so, on Pacheco’s misinterpretation of Burton, either these scholars are wrong or Burton is wrong. I wonder which one he will decide is wrong, and whether he will have the integrity to delete that quotation? I somehow doubt it.

In any case, this amply illustrates why I cannot waste my time responding at length to Pacheco. He simply is in way over his head on this issue, and he demonstrates that with every new article he writes. On to Sungenis.

Robert Sungenis

I will begin my response of Sungenis’ articles with this quote from him:

If there is anyone saying that the “heos hou” issue is the most important matter in his research on the perpetual virginity of Mary, it is Svendsen himself.

And where do I say this? I have an entire 334-page book on Mary, fifty-one pages of which are devoted to this issue. I think the status of Mary is by far the bigger issue; and that is what I have focused on in my book.

Despite all your colorful analogies to the Phoenix Cardinal’s hapless season, those, like me, who know you quite well, realize that your above rant is tantamount to admitting that Svendsen’s case concerning “heos hou” has been put into the dust bin of history, never to rise again.

“Never to rise again.” Let’s see, where have we heard this phrase before? Oh yes, it was used in relation to Sungenis’ evidence from “Mr. X” that earlier this year was supposed to have “buried” White, Svendsen, King and Webster, whose ideas were “never to rise again.”

Now, of course, we would also expect Eric Svendsen to get in on the act of trying to discredit the Aseneth story. Hence, he wasted no time in trying to confuse the issue by citing other scholars who question Burchard’s dating of the story.

Actually, no one is trying to “discredit” the Aseneth story—nor is there a need to. I’m merely pointing out that there is absolutely no consensus today on just when it was composed, and current estimates range widely from the second-century BC (which places it neatly in a timeframe that I have already conceded uses heos hou in the way needed by Roman Catholic apologists) to the fifth-century AD. And why exactly would citing scholars who challenge Burchard’s date of the story be “confusing the issue”—unless, of course, the “issue” is that Sungenis and Matatics are pinning their only hope on the extremely precarious date of this particular document? Then, of course, it understandably would be “confusing” to those looking desperately for some sort of exception to the heos hou rule. The fact is, the very first date proposed for this story was estimated to be AD fourth-fifth century by Battifol, who produced the first critical edition of Joseph and Aseneth. I suppose we could claim with even greater justification that Sungenis’ limited dating of Joseph and Aseneth “confuses the issue” even more.

Here is the email that Svendsen sent to White (which I obtained from one of my colleagues):

It should be noted here that I freely posted this email I sent to James White in the Areopagus of this web site—Sungenis did not get a hold of some “secret” and “diabolical” email as he here intimates. In any case, the sheer number of errors Sungenis makes in his comments regarding his reading of this simple email is absolutely staggering. I will point them out along the way. The reader may want to open the original post containing that email from this link (http://pub84.ezboard.com/fntrmindiscussionboardfrm9.showMessage?topicID=567.topic) so that he can do a side-by-side comparison to see how prone to error Sungenis really is.

The other three AD dates won’t help Svendsen either. For if the story of Aseneth was written in the 2nd to 5th centuries, this would mean, according to Svendsen’s thesis about the usage of “heos hou” (i.e., the meaning of “heos hou” which continues the action of a Greek main clause, which, you remember, means that a “heos hou” which continues the action means that Joseph and Mary did not have sexual relations even after Jesus was born) was present in Greek literature before Matthew wrote his gospel, then suddenly disappeared from Greek literature when Matthew wrote his gospel, and then suddenly reappeared in the 2nd to 5th centuries in Greek literature!! If you believe that, my uncle has some swamp land in Florida he would love to sell you. I don’t know of ANY linguistic or philological studies that have claimed that a word can mean one thing, then change its meaning, and then go back to the original meaning. If Svendsen knows of any such studies, his novel research requires that he cite such evidence. Without it, Svendsen’s thesis about “heos hou” is a total pseudo-intellectual sham.

The word adelphos is one example. We know that in the LXX it can be used to denote kinsmen. We also know that that particular meaning fell out of usage in the New Testament period (as is confirmed even by Roman Catholic scholars, such as J. A. Fitzmyer and J. P. Meier), and was reintroduced by Christian writers in later centuries. But the question itself is simply wrongheaded and completely anachronistic. Whatever happens to a word in later centuries has absolutely no bearing on what happened to it in prior centuries. That's a word study fallacy known as "Semantic Anachronism." It’s much like claiming that if in 200 years the word “let” once again begins to mean “to hinder/forbid” (as it surely did in the KJV of the seventeenth century), that somehow will prove that that meaning never fell out of usage to begin with. Such a statement betrays desperation as the motive.

Now let’s look at the BC dates Svendsen brings forth. First, the entry by Bohak obviously doesn’t help his case at all, simply because Bohak’s “1st Century BC” dating agrees with Burchard's parameters of 100 BC to 117 AD! (I wonder why Svendsen didn’t mention that fact in his email to White?).

This is humorous. I, in fact, did include Bohak in my email. That is obviously where Sungenis got the reference to begin with. Why didn’t I mention that “Bohak’s ‘1st century BC’ dating agrees with Burchard's parameters of 100 BC to 117 AD”? Well, I suppose the main reason would be that Bohak doesn’t date the document in the first-century BC; he dates the document in the second-century BC—clearly outside of the parameters of my investigation, and clearly outside of Burchard's parameters.

But, rest assured, I would have included a reference to Bohak’s work even if he did date the document in the first-century BC. Why? Because I’m not interested in suppressing the evidence as Sungenis apparently is, and my mention of it would be to show that a first-century dating is just one of many possibilities. But that’s just the point. There is no consensus. There is no certainty. And because there is no consensus or certainty, the passage itself cannot be submitted as evidence either way. I know that Sungenis desperately wants to be able to view this as an exception; but in doing so, he once again demonstrates why he is unfit to comment on these sorts of things. He is far too partisan, far too agenda driven, far too committed to his own cause, and far too unable to see his own partisanship to contribute meaningfully to the discussion.

So that leaves Svendsen with the “2nd Century BC” date from Goodacre on which his theory sinks or swims, so let’s look closely at this.

This, again, is laughable. My thesis does not “sink or swim” on the dating of Joseph and Aseneth. Quite the contrary; since we cannot know with certainty when the document was composed, we must necessarily exclude it from consideration. Indeed, the situation is just the converse of how Sungenis characterizes it. It is safe to say that it is Sungenis’ contention that sinks or swims on the dating of this document. If the date of the document doesn’t happen to pan out to be within the parameters of first-century usage, then Sungenis’ entire objection is rendered moot. Sungenis has much more at stake with the dating of this document than I do.

First, Goodacre himself admits, according to Svendsen’s quote, that he is the odd man out, since “20th century scholarship” agrees that the story of Aseneth was written between “100BC and AD135”! In fact, of all the scholars Svendsen lists, Goodacre is the only one to posit a 2nd century BC date. Moreover, his novel date comes from his 1994 dissertation. In fact, of all the scholars Svendsen lists, Goodacre is the only one to posit a 2nd century BC date.

Amazing—three errors in one point. (1) Goodacre does not admit he is the odd man out, and he is not the only one to posit a second-century BC date (Error # 1). Proponents of varying dates include Battifol (4^th-5^th cent. AD), Kraemer (4^th-5^th cent. AD), Bohak (2^nd cent. BC), Pietersma (intrigued by 2^nd cent. BC date; obviously sees no problem prima facie with the date), and Oxford University’s write up of Kraemer’s work states, “[Joseph and Aseneth] has traditionally been viewed as an early 2nd-century C.E. conversion story of Jewish provenance (2^nd cent. AD)." All of these estimates fall outside of the time era of my thesis. (2) The view of 20th cent. scholarship on this point is far from firm. Goodacre states explicitly “there is no consensus about when Joseph and Aseneth was written. The reason there is no consensus is because, on this particular document, there is no way to be certain of authorship, provenance, geographic origin or textual relationships (Error # 2). (3) Goodacre did not write his dissertation on this issue (he refers instead to Ross Kraemer’s monograph) (Error # 3).

Moreover, his novel date comes from his 1994 dissertation. In scholarly circles, a dissertation written less than 10 years ago hardly qualifies as definitive evidence, since such recent ideas have yet to pass through the scrutiny of peer review, especially since Goodacre is the only one of all the scholars opting for a 2nd century date.

Again, a plethora of errors. The reader need only check the original email to see that (1) the 2^nd cent. BC date (not the 5^th cent. AD date) comes from Bohak’s (not Goodacre’s) 1994 dissertation. And the 5^th cent BC date is anything but “novel.” Novel means “new.” But as I’ve already pointed out, the 5^th cent. AD date was the very first—the original—date Battifol gave for Joseph and Aseneth in the first critical edition of this work. If anything is “novel,” it is the 100 BC to AD 135 date of the 20^th century, which is now being overturned in favor of other dates. The very fact that some scholars can postulate a 2^nd cent. BC date and others can postulate a 5^th cent. AD for the very same document, should give anyone pause for including it in the evidence of the usage of a Greek phrase during a specific time period. All careful scholars would simply refuse to use it due to the precarious nature of its dating. Yet, that doesn’t seem stop Gerry Matatics and Robert “I-must-have-this-date-at-any-cost” Sungenis.

But let’s assume for the sake of argument that the story of Aseneth is a 2nd century document. That means that it was written between 199 BC and 100 BC. Now, does common sense allow you to believe that the use of “heos hou” in the story of Aseneth (which continues the action of the verb in a Greek sentence and thus supports that Joseph and Mary had no sexual relations), suddenly would change its meaning from say, 150 BC (which is the average between 199 and 100) to 100 BC (which is the beginning date of Svendsen’s arbitrary parameters)? No, common sense tells you that this is not likely at all. If Svendsen contends otherwise, what evidence does he have to prove his case?

From an exegetical standpoint, Sungenis’ analysis is simply pathetic. Of course words and phrases can and do change that quickly. That’s the whole point of D. A. Carson’s principles of semantic obsolescence and semantic anachronism. The example Carson gives is the Greek word martys, which underwent no fewer than five semantic range changes by the second century AD! There is little need to examine the Joseph and Aseneth document specifically since I have already illustrated in my book that this same phenomenon occurred with the phrase heos hou. There are a few instances of in the LXX (written roughly during the same time period as the 2nd cent. BC date proposed for Joseph and Aseneth) where it carries meanings that simply don’t exist in the 1st cent. BC. What Sungenis has posited above as an “unlikely” scenario that defies “common sense” is in fact what all linguists recognize does happen in the etymology of most words. Obviously, there was a last time that the word “let” was found in a written document with the meaning “to hinder/forbid,” so that a mere “50 years later” it would have been seen “suddenly to change its meaning.” We know for a fact that the very thing at which Sungenis marvels did happen. Again, desperation to find just one exception to the heos hou rule is the motivating factor of Sungenis’ rather silly principle of “common sense.”

Svendsen has no direct testimony from any Greek author or witness who say, specifically, that “heos hou” changed its meaning in the period under discussion (100 BC to 100 AD).

Again, pathetic. But these are just the kinds of questions posed by someone who is desperately attempting to sidestep the evidence as it is normally adduced. Where is the “Greek author or witness” who says, specifically, that martys changed its meaning in the period under discussion? Indeed, where is the “Greek author or witness” who says, specifically, that any word changed its meaning during the period of time that author lived? These are things that are observed after the fact; and on Sungenis’ criteria, we could never allow that any word underwent an etymological change. This is the same kind of ridiculous criteria that Gerry Matatics offers us when he demands that we cite a verse from Scripture that specifically states “Mary had other children.” It’s simply the act of a desperate man to make such meaningless demands when all the evidence points against his own views.

This is pure poppycock. No scholar in their [sic] right mind would ever sanction such an unsupported scenario. The most they would ever give Svendsen is to say that the meaning of “heos hou” that continues the action of the verb doesn’t appear, but they would never say that “heos hou” changed its meaning from two possibilities to one possibility.

That’s simply ludicrous. Sungenis keeps betraying the fact that he has not read my work. If he had, he would know that I identify many different meanings of heos hou in the literature under consideration. It can carry connotations of cessation, contemporaneous action, extent, or result—just as it can (among other connotations) in the LXX. The fact is, the usage found in the LXX is broader than what we find in later centuries. And so, Sungenis’ simplistic understanding of my research is deficient from the start.

Okay, now let’s analyze what Svendsen is claiming. First, since Svendsen claims to have examined “every reference” in the arbitrary era he chose (100 BC to 100 AD), and thus he should have known that there were some scholars who were giving a date of 100 BC - 117 AD to the Aseneth story, then why didn’t Svendsen mention this fact in either his dissertation or his book? Obviously the answer is that either Svendsen was not aware of Burchard’s evidence (and thus Svendsen’s study is not the exhaustive one he purports it to be) or because Burchard’s dating does not agree with Svendsen’s arbitrary thesis.

The reason it wasn’t included in my work is quite simple; most scholars—even most 20th-century scholars—place it outside the specific time frame in question, estimating it to be closer to a mid-second century AD document. Hence, this reference, even if it is to be dated as a second-century document, has no bearing on how exhaustive my work is. Since it shows up as a second-century document, it is not very well going to come up in a search of first-century documents. This is all moot, of course, since no one knows whether this document is second-century BC or fifth-century AD.

Second, let’s take a close look at the contrary evidence Svendsen brings forth. Here is the breakdown of when these scholars say Aseneth was written:

A.D. Battifol..................................4-5th century AD

20th century scholarship.......................2nd-3rd century AD

20th century scholarship (accd to Goodacre)..100 BC to 135 AD

R. Kraemer.....................................4-5th century AD

G. Bohak.......................................1st century BC

M. Goodacre....................................2nd century BC

Does this information really help Svendsen? No, not at all. Svendsen’s only escape is to try to make this evidence a confusing assortment of guesses so that he can claim that an unsettled date of Aseneth does no harm to his thesis.

Sungenis is once again wrong on which scholars hold which dates. It is an amazing and instructive thing to note how little attention Sungenis gives to careful scholarship when he is hastily throwing up public articles on his web site. That in itself should be enough to alert the reader that you’ll need to check every single “fact” Sungenis asserts before accepting it. Once again, Goodacre agrees with Battifol and Kraemer (AD 4-5^th cent.) and Bohak holds to a second-cent. BC date, not first-cent. BC.

Sungenis thinks that my “only escape” (life seems to be one big suspenseful movie for Sungenis) is to make this evidence “a confusing assortment of guesses” so that I can claim that an unsettled date of J&A has no impact on my thesis. But the fact is, the evidence is just that; a confusing assortment of guesses. Hence there is really no need for me to plan my “escape” as though in some cliff-hanger.

But, in fact, [sic] the dates expose Svendsen’s chosen pararmeter [sic] (100 BC to 100 AD) for the arbitrary opinion that it really is. Here’s how:

You will notice that of the six entries above, four of them assume an AD date, while two assume a BC date. Of the four AD dates, the “20th century scholarship accd to Goodacre” concurs with C. Burchard’s date of 100 BC to 117 AD, and thus that doesn’t help Svendsen, in fact, it thoroughly works against him. (I wonder why Svendsen didn’t mention that fact in his email to White?)

What Sungenis fails to mention is that all the dates above fall outside the parameters of the study. And, according to Sungenis table above, the consensus of 20^th-cent. scholarship is 2nd-3rd cent AD, not the Goodacre estimate of 100 BC to 135 AD, placing it well outside those parameters. Does Sungenis wish to correct his figure above? If not, then there is no cliff hanger. If so, there still is no cliff hanger since, once again, Sungenis must first assume the rightness of the 100 BC to 135 AD scenario to level his criticism in the first place. Since not only is there no certainty on the date, but also that that particular scenario is falling out of favor with 21-cent scholarship, Sungenis’ “gotcha” is rendered completely moot.

I’ve already addressed the folly of this “challenge” above. And, contrary to Sungenis’ suggestion above, I’m quite comfortable with a 100 BC dating of J&A, a 50 BC dating, or even a 1 BC dating, not to mention an AD 100 dating—dates all within the parameters of the now-challenged 20^th-cent. scholarship. Just because that particular reference might be dated during this time frame (even though it doesn’t happen to show up in a search of the literature of that time frame), does not thereby imply some staggering epiphany. The plain fact of the matter is, even if it were composed within the time parameters estimated by 20^th-century scholarship it has very little bearing on the conclusions of my thesis. If we see the phrase appearing in 100 BC, all that proves is that it is the final instance of a usage for the phrase that I readily concede in my book it once had. If we find it in 50 BC, all that proves is that it is the sole instance of that usage—a late carryover, as it were—in the first-century BC. If we find it in 1 BC, all that proves is that it represents the sole instance of that usage as a very late carryover in the first-century BC. What cannot be denied in any of these scenarios is that heos hou (when it means until) never means in any undisputed instance what the Roman Catholic needs it to mean in Matt 1:25. That fact stands no matter what. The issue is not so much a grammatical “rule” as it is “common usage” of the day.

Even if we were to grant that J&A dates at AD 50 (the approximate dating of Matthew and a best-case scenario for Sungenis), and thereby represents the sole undisputed exception to the common usage of the day, all that would prove is that the Roman Catholic reading of Matt 1:25 moves from the status of extremely unlikely to the status of highly unlikely. It would still be an exceedingly uncommon usage—equivalent to using the archaic behold, lo, wherefore, thee, thou, and the like in place of modern colloquial English. Indeed, since the document purports to be an account of when the Patriarch Joseph met his wife Aseneth (Genesis 41:45), the author of J&A may very well have purposefully adopted archaic phrases to give it the appearance of age (much the same way Joseph Smith used archaic KJV English when he composed the book of Mormon to make it appear to be an older work than it actually is). If this is the case, then quite obviously such a document cannot be used to establish common usage of language for the day.

Now, keep in mind that this is the best-case scenario for Sungenis. It is by no means the most likely scenario. Can you imagine anyone else but Sungenis, Matatics and company making such a big issue of—indeed, literally rejoicing over—a possible sole exception based on an unlikely scenario? “Hurray! Our sacred dogma of Mary’s perpetual virginity now falls in the category of highly unlikely! Hurray!” Yet Sungenis presses on:

The only thing Svendsen has is that there are two possible meanings to “heos hou,” and he is trying to convince the uneducated public that if the frequency of “heos hou” which continues the action of the main verb is less than what it was previously, then this means that “heos hou” has changed its meaning!

First, as I have already indicated above, the phrase heos hou has many possible meanings in the common usage of the first century; but what Sungenis needs it to mean in Matt 1:25 is not one of them. It is not that the usage which continues the action of the main verb is less than what it was previously. It is that it doesn’t occur in the first centuries BC and AD., even though it did in previous eras. And no one is positing that the phrase “changed its meaning” (another example of Sungenis’ lack of familiarity with my work); rather, some of the nuances of usage ceased while others became prominent in the common lingua of the New Testament world.

This is pure poppycock. No scholar in their right mind would ever sanction such an unsupported scenario.

What is “poppycock” is Sungenis’ pretense to know what scholars do or say—he is, quite simply, clueless in this field of study. There is nothing “unsupported” about my thesis. All the evidence for common usage is there for anyone to see.

The most they would ever give Svendsen is to say that the meaning of “heos hou” that continues the action of the verb doesn’t appear, but they would never say that “heos hou” changed its meaning from two possibilities to one possibility.

How does Sungenis think common usage is established by any scholar? To acknowledge that the phrase heos hou appears in several dozen instances in this literature, and then candidly to admit that not even one of these instances shows continuation of the action of the main clause, is to establish the case for common usage. This is how New Testament Greek exegesis is done. Scholars examine the usage of a Greek word or phrase to see if any patterns emerge. Apart from observing the pattern of the relationship between multiple nouns governed by a single article as opposed to each noun governed by its own article, there is no Granville Sharp rule. Apart from observing the pattern of the Greek word einai connecting two substantives, there is no McGaughy rule. Apart from observing the pattern regarding consecutive accusative substantives, there is no Moeller/Kramer rule. That is the methodology. That is how Greek rules are discovered and established, whether Sungenis, Pacheco or Matatics happens to like it or not. If they don't happen to like it, they need to take it up with New Testament Greek scholarship. Hence, when we examine the phrase heos hou, and we find that there is a pattern of usage when it means "until," the methodology used in establishing the consequent rule is unimpeachable since it is identical to the methodology used in establishing consequent rules from other observable patterns of usage.

I mentioned earlier that I would return to the topic of the relevance of the LXX in establishing the usage of words and phrases for the New Testament. I noted there that Sungenis, Pacheco and Matatics each misunderstands how the LXX is used in this regard. When I set out to do this research for my Ph.D. dissertation, I knew from my preliminary research that the majority of instance I found would likely fall into the categories I had found in the New Testament itself, and that the rest would fall into the categories that I had found in the LXX. I was fairly convinced I would find at least a few instances of the phrase that would lend credence to the Roman Catholic interpretation of Matt 1:25, and I was prepared to publish those findings no matter where they led—even if they didn’t make the point one way or the other. I remember sitting in D.A. Carson’s Advanced Greek Grammar class and continually hearing him emphasize the point that tedious, dull and boring grammatical research that yields no firm conclusion is actually of greater value to the scholarly community than is grammatical research that suppresses evidence and skips points along the way. Of course, if the dull and boring research actually turns up a pattern, all the better. Hence, I fully expected to encounter evidence that supports the Roman Catholic position, and fully intended to publish that evidence. What I didn’t anticipate was that I would find no evidence for the Roman Catholic view of this phrase in the literature contemporary to Matthew’s gospel.

One question that continually seems to come up on the Roman Catholic side in discussions of this issue is, Why the time frame of 100 BC and AD 100? Why not include the LXX in the consideration of usage for the New Testament period? This is not, as is imagined by Roman Catholic apologists, some arbitrary parameter. The fact is, the Greek of the LXX is different from the Greek of the New Testament and papyri. When I took Doug Moo’s New Testament and LXX class, I was required (along with all the other students) to purchase a copy of the lexicon of Liddell and Scott, even though I already owned a copy of BAGD. I soon discovered just why this was required, as many of the words in passages we were required to translate simply could not be found in BAGD. And even those words that were common to the New Testament were often found in the LXX bearing forms outside of common New Testament usage. The way Roman Catholic apologists make their points on this issue, one would think that Classical Greek usage came to a screeching halt on Jan 1, 300 BC., at which time Koine Greek suddenly began being used, and continued to be used in its unadulterated, unchanged form until Jan 1, AD 300—so that any and every occurrence of any given word or phrase, whether in the LXX or the New Testament, was completely intact for the entire 600-year period. Quite the contrary. Classical Greek evolved into Koine Greek over time.

And, just in case Roman Catholic apologists are unaware of this, I’ll let them in on a little secret—it continued to evolve even within the Koine period. That is how language works, period. And any suggestion to the contrary (“how dare you exclude the instances found in the LXX when establishing the meaning of this phrase in Matthew’s day!”) simply betrays an uninformed opinion. The LXX was composed over the course of a century beginning roughly in 250 BC.—that is directly on the heels of the Classical period. Obviously, it should come as no surprise that we would find words and phrases shifting in nuance, expanding or contracting in their semantic range, or even dropping certain connotations altogether. At one time, the Greek article operated as a personal pronoun. That usage dropped out of existence. At one time the Greek word martys meant “one who gives testimony in or out of court.” That meaning changed five times and finally rested on “one who dies for a cause”—all within the same Koine Greek period! But that’s just not supposed to happen, according to Roman Catholic apologists! Yet, happen it did—and still does; which is why none of us speaks Elizabethan English these days, even though many of us are highly influenced by the language of the KJV. That is why we cannot simply ignore the fact that heos hou never bears the meaning “until, and continuing” in any of the literature of Matthew’s day (or in the period leading up to Matthew’s day), reach back to the second or third century BC, find a handful of instances where it bears this meaning, and then exclaim AHA!, foist that meaning upon the New Testament period (where it never occurs), and somehow claim that we’ve exercised due diligence in firmly establishing the grammatical evidence in support of our dogmatic beliefs.

Then what is the study of LXX words good for? The LXX is valuable in establishing the meaning of theological terms that might influence the New Testament writers. The New Testament writers speak an awful lot about justification, redemption, salvation, and the like; concepts all of which have their genesis in the Old Testament. Some of these words are considered Hebraisms—that is to say, words that have meaning only in an OT context, and sometimes lack any first-century equivalent. It is here that the study of the LXX casts light on New Testament terms. But, note well; this influence is limited to theological terms and concepts, and it does not hold sway over common prepositions and conjunctions that have absolutely no theological significance. Such is the case with a phrase like heos hou. Matthew is not using a Hebraism (as has been suggested by both Sungenis and Matatics in the past), since there is absolutely no theological significance to the phrase.

Sungenis has also weighed in on attempting to explain the Greek word sunerchomai in Matt 1:18 (translated “came together”) on which Gerry Matatics fumbled so badly in the Svendsen-White/Matatics debate that aired recently on the Dividing Line program. Those of you who listened to the show saw how Roman Catholic apologists are forced to dance around the specific heading under which BDAG places this verse in its entry for the word: “To unite in an intimate relationship, come together in a sexual context.” Matatics attempted to make a distinction between the word when it carries a sexual connotation and when it carries only a legal connotation, as in a marriage contract—even though BDAG places every instance he cited under the same broader heading of sexual relations. Matatics’ dance around this word illustrated a contention I have long held; namely, that Roman Catholic apologists simply do not know how to read Greek reference works. Sungenis treats us to another example of this in his analysis of Xenophon, Memorabilia, 2.2.4, a passage BDAG places under the same general heading for the meaning of this word, The passage reads:

Moreover, surely you don’t suppose that human beings beget children on account of sex, since the streets as well as the houses are full of those who will release one from this. And it is visible that we examine also from what sort of women we might get the best offspring, and it is with these we come together to produce offspring.

The phrase in question is this one: “and it is with these we come together to produce offspring." Sungenis explains:

The citation could easily be interpreted to mean that the men first congregate with the women, that is, “come together” (Greek: sunerchomai), and of these women they meet, each of them will eventually choose which woman he wants to mate and produce offspring. We know this is a viable interpretation, since the passage speaks in the plural (“with these we come together”) not the singular. Obviously, coitus does not take place in a plurality, only the meeting together with the women takes place in a plurality.

The utter ridiculousness of Sungenis’ interpretation of this passage becomes apparent when we substitute the phrase “come together” with the phrase “have sexual relations” (which, according to BDAG itself, is what sunerchomai means in this passage), producing the following statement: “and it is with these we have sexual relations to produce offspring." Would Sungenis likewise spin a statement like this, claiming, “well, since it’s in the plural, it can’t really mean sexual relations since, obviously, coitus does not take place in a plurality”? Sungenis’ interpretation is no more “viable” than is a reading of Col 3:19 (“Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them”) that posits since the words “husbands” and “wives” are in the plural, then a “viable” interpretation is that Paul is here commanding that all married men love all married women.

Regarding Sungenis’ latest article in which he supposedly responds to my article addressing his incompetence in the Greek, Sungenis has this to say:

I am answering Svendsen’s rebuttal rather late because when he wrote his rebuttal in August 2002, he did not alert me to that fact, and thus I didn’t know it existed until today, November 17, 2003, when one of my colleagues told me. Perhaps if Svendsen wants me to answer him, in the future he can send his rebuttal to me directly.

I’m sorry, but I just cannot let this one stand. I didn’t inform Sungenis about my first article; and yet he had no problem finding it. I find it exceedingly difficult to believe that Sungenis suddenly had no informants to alert him to my response. The vultures are out there daily—I know, because they write me personally to air their views anytime I post a new article. I simply do not believe Sungenis when he says that he was unaware of this article for over an entire year. I think the real reason he hasn’t responded is because he has no meaningful response—and the present article that he calls a “response” is no exception. It does not address even half the points I made in my prior article. Be that as it may, here is Sungenis “response”:

Svendsen’s explanation does not explain anything, except to give various possibilities why there are so many Greek textual variants, but he has no proof of WHY a certain scribe wrote a certain way in a specific instance. Nevertheless, notice that Svendsen dismisses the one possibility that hurts his position.

I dismiss it not because it hurts my position, but because it’s not a possibility. Instead, it’s a baseless speculation that has no support in the field of text criticism.

Unfortunately, this is one of Eric’s misdirection attempts. The examples he offers have little to do with the relationship between “heos” and “heos hou,” and he knows it. We are not talking about noun and pronoun differences (which can change the whole meaning of a phrase or sentence), but simply two different ways of writing a prepositional phrase that everyone up until the advent of Eric Svendsen has understood as meaning the same thing

And that’s the whole point. If a scribe can error in the major things, how much more likely is he to error in the minor things?

In fact, I’m sorry for the audience’s sake that I didn’t say this before, since it may have dispensed with a lot of esoteric “Greek-talk” going back and forth between Svendsen and I, but the difference between “heos” and “heos hou” is as simple as, for example, whether we decide to use the word “that” in a sentence in English. If, for example, we write: “I told John that the time had come for him to read,” this means the same as “I told John the time had come for him to read.” Notice that the first sentence uses “that,” where as the second does not, but both sentences mean precisely the same thing.

Another mere assertion on Sungenis’ part regarding the very issue under debate. Sungenis apparently thinks it’s more profitable to assert than to demonstrate—the latter, he cannot do.

Now the question is: why would the Greek have a relative pronomial [sic] or pronoun, or a relative adjective, following a preposition? Actually, this shouldn’t surprise us, since we sometimes do a similar thing in English. For example, instead of saying: “Do you remember the story I told you about?” a more proper way to say this in English is: “Do you remember the story about which I told you?” The phrase “about which” includes the preposition “about” followed by the relative pronoun “which.” This sounds a little awkward even in English. In fact, people will usually use “about which” in their writing, but not speak that way, since it sounds so formal to the ear.

Sungenian ramblings, nothing more. What is gratuitously asserted may be gratuitously denied.

Unfortunately, Eric Svendsen is getting all tangled up by looking at “heos hou” as a separate and distinct phrase in Greek. In fact, his whole research is biased toward that conclusion. Not once does he consider the argument I gave above, which argument is as common in linguistic analysis as vowels and consonants.

And why would I give any weight to this? What evidence does Sungenis offer us other than his mere assertions that this is the relationship between heos and heos hou? Absolutely nothing. Believe it or not, that’s the entirety of Sungenis’ response to this article: http://www.ntrmin.org/sungenis_and_heos_hou_2.htm. Anyone who has the temerity to read a lot of technical stuff is welcome to read this article, compare it to Sungenis’ “response,” and judge for himself whether Sungenis has really addressed the issue.

Eric Svendsen, Ph.D.
Director, NTRMin.org