Exegetical Fallacies - D. A. Carson

for their opinions. Rather, he is using a rhetorical device to draw his readers into his argument, a device
that sets up the hearty j.u yevotio (rue genoito, "By no means!" [NIV]). In other words, this is a rhetorical
pseudodeliberative use of the subjunctive.
My point is fourfold: much grammatical territory remains to be won, the results can be exegetically
useful, systematic distinctions must be worked out between semantics (of the morphological form) and
pragmatics (of the context) and meanwhile not a few grammatical categories mask as much as they reveal.
3. The middle voice
The most common fallacy in connection with the middle voice is the supposition that virtually
everywhere it occurs it is either reflexive or suggests that the subject acts of itself. Compe tent
grammarians are not so naive, of course; but this fallacy has nevertheless found its way into many books
and is usually introduced in order to shore up some favored doctrine.
In particular, several authors have strenuously argued that the middle verb m n ovtiat (pausontai) in 1
Corinthians 13:8 is exegetically highly significant.14 Prophecies will be destroyed (Katiapyr10rj oviat
[katargethesontai]), knowledge will be destroyed (xatiapyr10j etiat [katargethesetai]); but tongues will
cease (mavaovtiat [pausontai])-that is, there is no need for tongues to be destroyed (passive) by someone
or something, for the middle (it is argued) suggests that tongues will cease by themselves, because of
something intrinsic to their very nature. This interpretation of the middle is then sometimes linked with the
view that tongues played a useful role in the church until the canon was complete (some take io tia 4tov
[to teleion, "the perfect thing"] in v. 10 to refer to the canon); but from that point on, they are intrinsically
obsolete and cease. The conclusion to be drawn is that there is no valid gift of tongues today.
Whatever the merits of this exegesis of 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 (and they are few), it is certainly wrong
to rest so much on the middle verb 7Cavaoviat (pausontai). For a start, the middle voice has a wide range
of implications. Sometimes it is deponent (e.g., apxovtiat [erchontai]); sometimes it is used to indicate
that the action is reflexive; that is, that the subject acts on himself, herself, itself (e.g., Matt. 26:46; 27:5;
although this use is uncommon in the New Testament). Sometimes the middle is used when a subject acts
for self (e.g., Mark 10:38, Ti aitieiaOe [ti aiteisthe]- "what you are asking [for yourselves]," MV).
Sometimes the middle voice suggests the subject allows something to be done (e.g., Luke 2:5,
amcoypdtVaaOat (5vv Maptdµ [apograpsasthai svn Mar- ia[n], "to be enrolled with Mary").
Occasionally a verb is active in some tenses and middle deponent in others (especially the future); and at
other times the middle voice of a verb with an active voice has a semantic range set disjunctively over
against that of the active voice. One never knows in advance; each middle voice verb must be examined
in its own right.
When we examine the use of the verb i ai. (pauo) in the New Testament, we discover that it regularly
appears in middle form. In the active voice, its lexical meaning is "to stop, to cause to stop, to relieve"; in
the middle, either "to stop oneself" (reflexive usage), or "to cease" (i.e., it becomes equivalent to a
deponent with intransitive force). It never unambiguously hears the meaning "to cease of itself" (i.e.,
because of something intrinsic in the nature of the subject); and several passages rule out such overtones
as the automatic semantic force of the middle voice form of this verb. For instance, in Luke 8:24, we read
that Jesus rebuked the wind and the raging waters, and they "subsided" (Niv; i=nau6avTo [epausartto])-
which clearly cannot mean that they ceased because of something intrinsic to their nature. Something