| ….Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ, in Colossae: Grace and peace to you from God our Father. |
1-2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ….We always give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints. Your faith and love come from the hope that is being safely guarded for you in heaven, of which you heard about previously through the word of the truth, the gospel, when it first came to you. Even as the gospel is bearing fruit and increasing in the whole world, so also it is doing the same among you, since the day you heard about and truly understood the grace of God, just as you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow-slave who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf and who has also told us about your love in the spirit. | 3-8 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ….For this reason, we also, ever since the day we heard these things about you, have not ceased praying for you, and asking that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. We pray this so that you might walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him- bearing fruit in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened in all power according to His glorious might in all endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father who makes you able to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. For he has delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, that is, the forgiveness of our sins. | 9-14 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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15-20 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ….You also were once alienated from God, hostile in your thoughts and performing evil deeds, but now you are reconciled in Christ’s physical body, through His death, so that He can present you as holy, without blemish, and innocent before Him- that is, if you persist in your faith, being firmly established, steadfast, and do not shift away from the hope of the Gospel. It is the very Gospel which you heard, and which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. It is the same Gospel of which I, Paul, have become a minister. | 21-23 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ….Now I rejoice in my sufferings on your behalf, and supplement in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I have become a minister to according to the stewardship of God, which was given to me for you, in order to fulfill the word of God – the mystery which was hidden since eternity past and throughout the generations. But now this mystery has been revealed to his saints, to whom God determined to make known the glorious riches of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim this truth by warning and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone as perfect in Christ. It is to this end that I also labor, striving according to the power which he powerfully works in me. | 24-28 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Resources Used: |
| Colossians-Philemon, WBC, by Peter O’Brien Colossians and Philemon, TNTC, by N.T. Wright BDAG A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament by Max Zerwick NET Bible notes |
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your last bit,
“Just as you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow-slave who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf and who has also told us about your love in the spirit.”
This is not a complete thought and your capitalization of the ‘j’ with the semi-colon which precedes throws me off suggesting that its supposed to be an independent clause.
@ v. 3, I like your translation of ὑμῶν προσευχόμενοι as “when we pray for you.” Treating the participle as temporal is quite good here.
@v. 5, good decision on διὰ τὴν ἐλπίδα τὴν ἀποκειμένην ὑμῖν, in carry over “faith and love” to make it clear.
@ v. 7, good choice on τοῦ ἀγαπητοῦ συνδούλου ἡμῶν as “our beloved fellow-slave.”
Mike and TC,
Thanks!
As for ὑμῶν προσευχόμενοι, I’m always excited when I think I can see the logical function of a participle in a sentence, because participles were the thing I struggled most with in my elementary class.
I had to think about about how to handle διὰ τὴν ἐλπίδα. Because I had taken ἀκούσαντες as being a ground or reason, it seemed too odd to not break up: either a “because of… because of…” or “because… through”- which seemed to be unnecessarily confusing in English as to what was “through hope”. Neither of those two seemed like too great of an idea.
As for “fellow-slave,” I think that we sometimes water down the idea of δουλος more than what we should, even more specifically in this book which was written while Paul was in prison.
The only issue that has been nagging me thus far is the ending prepositional phrase: ἐν πνεύματι
What is in the spirit? The love of the Colossians? Epaphras himself (as he told about their love)?
I’d put it as the Colossians love in the Spirit. The other question is whether this is locative or instrumental.
I’ll have to agree with Mike on this one, “in the Spirit” for ἐν πνεύματι.
I favor locative on this one, simply because this expression in v. 4, τὴν πίστιν ὑμῶν ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ , “your faith in Christ.”
Bryan, I see that ou have expanded your translation of Colossians 1 (vv. 9-23).
@ v. 10 I’d omit ” in a manner .” I see you treat the preposition phrase εἰς πᾶσαν ἀρεσκείαν as adverbial, good!
@ v. 13, Did you render as ὃς causal, “because”?
@ v. 14 good choice on the epexegetical nature of τὴν ἄφεσιν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν·.
@ v. 19 I see that once you’ve committed to God as the subject of εὐδόκησεν, you had to make τὸ possessive, “his.”
@ v. 21, interesting choice on prepositional phrase ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις τοῖς πονηροῖς. I would have gone causal, “because of your evil deeds.”
@ v. 22 Young treats τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ as genitive of material, because of a docetic element at Colossae. NRSV has “his fleshly body.”
@ v. 23, I like “shift away from” for μετακινούμενοι ἀπὸ .
Good stuff!
Hey TC
Thanks, again, for the comments!
“@ v. 10 I’d omit ” in a manner .””
Oh? I only put it in because “walk worthily” sounded too awkward. Any recommendation on how to treat the adverb ἀξίως to help me out?
“I see you treat the preposition phrase εἰς πᾶσαν ἀρεσκείαν as adverbial, good!”
We had a good, but unfortunately short, discussion about that in one of my greek classes
“@ v. 13, Did you render as ὃς causal, “because”?”
Not technically. Instead of translating it as “who” I sort of left it out/emphasized the personal pronoun ending of ἐρρύσατο. I’m not particularly happy with putting “because,” but I was thinking that the following phrases an explanation of how He has made us able to partake in the “lot of the saints.” So, its not ὃς that I took as causal, but the following discussion. I’m not convinced at my own reasoning however
“@ v. 19 I see that once you’ve committed to God as the subject of εὐδόκησεν, you had to make τὸ possessive, “his.””
Yeah, there’s really no way around that. I could go either way on this (nom. vs. accusative), but either way you take it, it’s pretty much well-understood what Paul means by “fullness.” In the end, the biggest things for me were the placement of fullness away from the main verb and closest to the infinitive, and the parallel which will come later in Colossians.
“@ v. 21, interesting choice on prepositional phrase ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις τοῖς πονηροῖς. I would have gone causal, “because of your evil deeds.””
I took it as a whole package, explaining the pre-christian life of the Colossians, i.e. what their whole life looked like, hence ‘performing.’ I didn’t even consider a causal possibility. I’ll look at that one a bit more.
“@ v. 22 Young treats τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ as genitive of material, because of a docetic element at Colossae. NRSV has “his fleshly body.””
As I mentioned in my comment on your site, I was running with O’Brien’s idea. Basically, it is synonymous with the NRSV rendering. His “literal” translation is “body of flesh” taken as a genitive of material. The reason he ultimately says “physical body” is due to examples of exact verbal equivalency in Qumran literature. “The phrase is heavily loaded with polemical overtones” assuredly against the proto-gnostic/docetistic views creeping in.
“Good stuff!”
Thanks!
Bryan, @ v. 13, an explanatory γὰρ would have been ideal, but I suppose a relative clause can serve the same purpose.
But “because” wouldn’t be the way to start, would it?
@ v. 19, the NRSV takes πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα as the subject of the verb εὐδόκησεν, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.”
@ v. 22, we are essentially saying the same thing, but I like O’Brien’s use of the Qumran literature. Good stuff!
“Bryan, @ v. 13, an explanatory γὰρ would have been ideal, but I suppose a relative clause can serve the same purpose.
But “because” wouldn’t be the way to start, would it?”
No, but I think I see what I was thinking. If we take μετὰ χαρᾶς from v. 11 with εὐχαριστοῦντες of verse 12 (which, although I have this way in the translation, I’m not totally sold on this yet), then I’m thinking along the lines of “Joyfully give thanks… because he has…”
But it doesn’t seem like Paul would have an ellipsied ὅτι. At this point, if the construction is right, then the γὰρ would make sense. As it is, I might have to go back to taking μετὰ χαρᾶς with μακροθυμίαν.
I think I have to sit on 11c – 13a a little bit more
“@ v. 19, the NRSV takes πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα as the subject of the verb εὐδόκησεν, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.””
That certainly makes sense, although the personification of fullness sounds weird to me (i.e. the abstract fullness of God itself was pleased?). Personal confusion does not an argument make, however.
On thinking about the parallel in 2.9 that I mentioned before, it is more in line with how the NRSV renders it- explicitly having “all the fullness” as the subject.
“@ v. 22, we are essentially saying the same thing, but I like O’Brien’s use of the Qumran literature. Good stuff!”
I figured as much
And the discussion in O’Brien on Qumran was pretty good. Not a full discussion, but interesting nonetheless.
*update*
I took out the “because” and replaced it with “for” @ v. 13
Now I have one long sentence from about 10 or 11 on till the end of 14, so I’m looking at the best way to make a break, so that it’s easier to read.
Bryan, see Paul on Eph 1:3-14. It’s one long sentence according to O’ Brien.
Yeah, most of this chapter is like that. I’ve broken it up so that it’s easier to read, i.e. You won’t have to keep going back to find an antecedent or the like. I know it’s fine as is, but I’d still like to come up with a break to make it more readable.
Most versions break at v.13: ὃς ἐρρύσατο ἡμᾶς …