Table Fellowship and the Translation of 1 Corinthians 5:11

Abstract

(ProQuest: denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) In a commonsense reading of 1 Cor 5:11, Paul adds insult to injury: But now I am writing to you to with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do eat with such a one. (NRSV; emphasis mine) As William F. Orr James Arthur Walther put it, dissociation is drastic: there is to be no table fellowship.1 This gloss captures a commonsense approach to Paul's prohibition not to eat with such a Refusing to eat with someone is, it would seem, an extreme form of exclusion, a drastic instance of refusing to associate with that person. However, commonsense notions about ancient texts are frequently misleading, especially when they remain unexamined.2 In this case, modern ideas about table fellowship may be exerting an unwarranted influence on translators interpreters of the text. The translation of the clause in question hinges on what BDF terms a negative correlative, .... The Pauline text reads as follows:3 The major translations (NASB, NIV, NJB, NKJV, New Living Translation [NLT], RSV) commentators agree in rendering in the last clause of this sentence as not even or its equivalent.4 In this translation, carries an exceptional force that is usually associated with .... Although indeed can, in certain cases, convey the sense not the question here is whether this exceptional force is warranted in 1 Cor 5:11. This verse is singled out for attention in BDF, which claims that .../ remains the same as in (§445). According to Herbert Weir Smyth, then, the default sense of .../... in classical usage is ana not, (§2163A), although in this compound word can mean and, even, also, or (§2930), as context usage may require.5 BAGD agrees, listing as the primary sense and not, but not, nor continuing a preceding negation (almost always w. ...), listing not even for more specialized constructions (BAGD, s.v. ...). Under what circumstances, then, does tend to take the stronger sense not even? The construction alone does resolve the matter (see Smyth §2932; BAGD, 1; examples in the following paragraph); additional factors must be in play. According to BDF, If... (...) stands at the beginning of the whole sentence or follows an (...) within the same clause, it means 'not even' (§445). Neither rule holds for 1 Cor 5:11. As examples, BDF offers Mark 3:20 (... . . . ..., in which what follows is an infinitive that requires what follows for completion); Mark 8:26 (... introducing a prohibition with the subjunctive); Matt 6:15 (... introducing an apodosis in which not even would be an overtranslation).6 None of these constructions parallels the . . . of 1 Cor 5:11. The examples Smyth offers for .../... in the sense not however, present the same kinds of constructions: a single verb with . . . (Sophocles, Trachiniae 280), which agrees with the second part of the rule in BDF §445 cited above, a negated infinitive (with ...) completed by a clause introduced by (Xenophon, Anabasis 6.6.25), which is similar to Mark 3:20. In these cases (...) is said to a preceding ... (Smyth §2939). The in 1 Cor 5:11 does resume the earlier in an analogous way. Finally, BAGD offers, as instances of not Mark 2:2 (... . . . ..., again where what follows completes a prior infinitive); Eph 5:3 (... introducing a prohibition); the first two verses given by BDF (Mark 3:20; 8:26); 1 Cor 5:11. Neither Mark 2:2 nor Eph 5:3, however, offers any kind of warrant for rendering as not even in 1 Cor 5:11. On the other hand, BAGD offers many examples where in . . . is best rendered in keeping with the rubric and not, but not, nor continuing a preceding negation (almost always w. …