I have strong grammatical evidence that decisively identifies "God" at Romans 9:5 as the Son. It is based on the anaphoric article. The Greek article developed from the pronoun, being a later addition to the language. Apollonius Dyscolus documented this in the second century.
See Debrunner-Funk (BDF). In its introduction to the article, it says:
Since the article with "God" in verse 9 is anaphoric, it identifies θεὸς in verse 8 as the God of the king. The objective grammar trumps a subjective contextual argument every time.
Think of the definite article in the same way you think of a pronoun. If one finds a pronoun that matches a noun it directly follows in case, number and gender, the first interpretation is always that it refers to that noun, right? It is considered the antecedent. The definite article is like that but more specific. It modifies a noun in addition to matching in case number and gender. So it is definitive in disambiguating the antecedent.
So, how can this help with Romans 9:5?
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See Debrunner-Funk (BDF). In its introduction to the article, it says:
Introduction. ὁ, ἡ, τό as article with appellatives has double meaning as in classical usage, individual and generic: ὁ ἄνθρωπος (1) ‘the known, particular, previously mentioned man’ ... (1) is also known as the ‘anaphoric’ use (since Apollonius Dyscolus ii AD) because there is reference back (ἀναφορά) to what is known or assumed to be known: (BDF §252) What this means is that when a noun is found in Greek and then is found again in a discourse, the article is inserted to signal that that it is being identified with the previous mention of that noun. It is a fact that most definite articles are anaphoric when they are individualizing articles like at Hebrews 1:8-9.
Think of the definite article in the same way you think of a pronoun. If one finds a pronoun that matches a noun it directly follows in case, number and gender, the first interpretation is always that it refers to that noun, right? It is considered the antecedent. The definite article is like that but more specific. It modifies a noun in addition to matching in case number and gender. So it is definitive in disambiguating the antecedent.
So, how can this help with Romans 9:5?
RO95.jpg
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