Journal of Biblical Literature - Society of Biblical Literature

278
Journal of Biblical Literature
them elsewhere also (examples from the Haustafel are in bold): 1:13a, b, 14, 18, 22; 2:1,
4, 12, 18, 3:1, 6c, d, 7a, b, 9a, b, 16; 4:8, 10, and 5:9. Although present in other NT
Haustafeln, imperatival participles are more concentrated in the Petrine code, and they
are not found in classical or Hellenistic Greek literature. The Greek participle is normally
accompanied by a finite verb which the participle complements. Participles thus
function either adjectivally or adverbially in relation to the finite verb. But an imperatival
participle is neither connected to any imperative form, nor is it an ellipse of the
periphrastic construction. It stands independently in the place of the main verb and is
obviously to be understood as a command. Imperatival participles should not be confused
with “exhortative participles,” which also have the sense of a command but which
draw that sense from the finite verb by which they are governed. Nigel Turner suggests
that the imperatival participle is “comparatively most frequent” in 1 Peter (Grammatical
Insights into the New Testament [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1965], 166). But just as there
is no consensus regarding which participles in 1 Peter are imperatival (see Lauri
Thurén, The Rhetorical Strategy of I Peter: With Special Regard to Ambiguous Expressions
(Åbo: Åbo Academy Press, 1990], 4–11, for an overview of different scholars’ positions),
so it is with participles in other NT epistles. Imperatival participles appear in Col
3:16, Eph 5:21, and possibly in Heb 13:5 and Rom 12:9–19. It is not unanimously
accepted that any of these NT participles should be interpreted imperativally, although
those who support the imperatival use are in the majority. These include David Daube,
The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism (London: Althone, 1956), 90–105; Thurén,
Rhetorical Strategy, passim (with qualifications); Max Zerwick, Biblical Greek: Illustrated
by Examples (Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblica; Rome: n.p., 1963); C. F. D.
Moule, An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1971), 179–80; Turner, Grammatical Insights, 165; John H. Elliott, The Elect and
the Holy: An Exegetical Examination of I Peter 2:4–10 and the Phrase “Basileion Hierateuma”
(NovTSup 12; Leiden: Brill, 1966), 16–17; James H. Moulton, A Grammar of
New Testament Greek (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1906), 180–83; H. G. Meecham, “The
Use of the Participle for the Imperative,” ExpTim 58 (1947): 207–8; William L. Schutter,
Hermeneutic and Composition in I Peter (WUNT 2/30; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck,
1989), 61; Ernest Best, 1 Peter (NCB; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1971), 30;
Leonhard Goppelt, A Commentary on I Peter (trans. John E. Alsup; Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1993), passim; Ernst Lohse, “Paraenesis and Kerygma in I Peter” (trans. J.
Steely), in Perspectives on I Peter (NABPR Special Studies 9; Macon, GA: Mercer University
Press, 1986), 43; Crouch, Origen and Intention, 24; Balch, “Let Wives Be Submissive,”
37, with reservations; and Michaels, 1 Peter, passim.
In 1947 NT scholar David Daube argued that the NT imperatival participles were
Christian versions of the Hebrew imperatival participle construction found in the Mishnah.
The imperatival participles in Hebrew are used to express what is customary and
agreed upon, as distinct from what is authoritative and absolute. They never occur in a
specific demand on a specific occasion. The participles are present in those instructions
which deal with customary behavior and are usually translated with the sense of “one
does such and such, and one does not do such and such.”
Daube argued that the Mishnaic participles arose out of the Jewish experience of
loss of revelation following the completion of the OT canon. They thus reflect the secondary
nature of nonbiblical rules. Daube added that they were expressed this way also