Subject: The Sons of God in Genesis 6:1-4 |
Bible Note: Hello, I appologize for waiting so long to reply. I have been going over the text in the greek. The context doesn't support your claims entirely. Let me clarify. First there is a pattern to the text of Jude 1:5-7. You have the comment in verse 5 stating that the reader should remember the following events and pay attention to them. Also in verse 5, you have the people of egypt mentioned, their unbelief, and the punishment given. Then we turn to verse 6. IN verse 6, you have the angels, their sin, which was leaving the natural domain, and the punishment, which is that they were chained up for the final judgement. Then you go to verse 7. You have sodom and gamorrah, then the cities surrounding them all listed. the sinful act was that of sexual immorality. The punishment was that of being destroyed. As you can see, there are three separate examples given. Now, for the phrase, "they in the same manner as these ...". If you were to follow the rules of greek grammer strictly, as you should, then it doesn't follow that this phrase is referring to the cities in relation to the angels. Here's why. First, the pattern I mentioned above. The pattern is that a group is mentioned, their sin is listed, their punishment, and the author goes on to the next group. Now what is important is that the author doesn't refer to the group of the previous verse specifically. If he did, then the people of egypt would have been referred to in one form or another in verse 6 as well. As we can see, they are not. Then we turn to the grammer itself. As you know, Greek doesn't follow the same rules of grammer as english, especially in matters of punctuation. Between sodom and gammorrah, all you have is "kai" or "and" in english. there is no other punctuation. However, between Sodom and Gammorah, and the "cities around them", there is punctuation, a coma. This is significant because it separates the two groups, and this separation follows throughout the rest of the verse. Then you have the nature of "toutos" or "these" in english, and the usages in contrasts and comparrisons. "Toutos" will usually refer to one of the groups previously identified earlier, and in matters of comparrison and contrast, there will usually be groups identified. This phrase is a comparrison. We also have two groups in the prior phrase being identified, and separated by punctuation. So, the true meaning of the phrase in question reads, "They (the cities around them), in the same manner as these (Sodom and Gammorrah)...". So, as you can see, the grammer doesn't follow. Jesusman |