Craig

And remember that we are trying to express Greek thought in English. I am not a Greek speaker, especially ancient Greek. It may be that such a transition is much less clumsy to a Greek speaker. At any rate, I don’t agree that “it still doesn’t seem to me to be a particularly natural way for Paul to talk”. Who are we to say what a natural way for Paul to talk is?

Just thinking some more about a similar sort of thing.
I’ve got a fairly Maths/Science type brain- not so much English/Arty.
Could it be true I wonder, that the English/Arty ones could see the way Paul has expressed this and exclaim, “how brilliant, how profound! To so unexpectedly refer to Jane, when we were expecting a comment about Eve, and yet to allude back to Eve in her deception when calling Jane ‘the woman’ – amazing.”
I remember thinking at times at school during English – while others were commenting “how clever”, I was thinking ”I’m lost. I wish the author could have just spoken a bit more plainly so that I could understand”. I didn’t appreciate the brilliance back then. Perhaps history is repeating itself! 🙂
It encourages me that even Peter found Paul a bit hard to follow sometimes 2 Pet 3:16.