Philological Notes on some Verses in the Catholic Epistles

Abstract

The present article discusses three verses in the Catholic Epistles: two in the Epistle of James and one in the Second Epistle of Peter. Each of these verses contains some difficulty, but these difficulties are of different order. In James 5, 7 we have a textual problem, coupled with the uncertainty of the meaning intended by the author. In James 5, 16 two possible grammatical interpretations of a Greek participle are considered as well as their potential for different theological interpretations. In the last section dealing with 2 Peter 1, 4 we discuss the relation between the general lexical meaning and the word’s use within a specific theological discourse. All of these areas of research — textual criticism, grammatical interpretation, and semantic analysis — play an important role in the process of theological reflection on the biblical text and its dogmatic interpretation.