Paragraph breaks and interpretation

The paragraph breaks and section headings in the modern English translations of the Bible, of course, are inserted by editors. Just like chapter and verse numbers, they were not there in the original manuscripts.

One of the most contentious issues today in Christendom (at least in Protestantism, the members of which always protest overmuch) is the authority of the husband in his household, including headship over his wife. The traditional interpretation, based on the analogy of Christ and the church, is sound, but politically incorrect in the current atmosphere. The application of it, however, has been regrettably far less than perfect. Men often forget that, while Scripture gives a man authority over his household, Scripture at the same time requires him to love his wife, in the pattern of the sacrificial love of Christ for his church. This has resulted in a revolt by the so-called egalitarians against the traditional teaching on the authority of the husband.

One of the key verses in the controversy is Ephesians 5:21. The English Standard Version reads (5:17–21)

17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Thus the paragraph break is at the end of verse 21. This makes sense, since in the original Greek, verses 19–21 consist of a sequence of participial phrases (addressing, singing and making melody, giving thanks, and submitting) which naturally belong together:

λαλουντες εαυτοις εν ψαλμοις και υμνοις και ωδαις πνευματικαις αδοντες και ψαλλοντες τη καρδια υμων τω κυριω ευχαριστουντες παντοτε υπερ παντων εν ονοματι του κυριου ημων Ιησου Χριστου τω θεω και πατρι υποτασσομενοι αλληλοις εν φοβω Χριστου

My interlinear Greek-NRSV Bible, however, breaks the Greek text before verse 21, making the participial phrase Υποτασσομενοι αλληλοις εν φοβω Χριστου modify verse 22, even capitalizing the Υ. The NRSV text itself breaks the paragraph both ways, making the participial phrase stand by itself, rephrasing it with a simple imperative.

It is not hard to see that the different paragraph breaks introduce various nuances. The ESV groups the phrase “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” with the general principles that begin with verse 18 (και μη μεθυσκεσθε οινω εν ω εστιν ασωτια αλλα πληρουσθε εν πνευματι). In this rendering, “submitting to one another” is a general principle, and the verses that follow (“Wives, submit to your own husbands, ...”) are specific ways how one ought to submit to another. Thus, it is not “mutual submission” (which does not quite make sense in light of the meaning of υποτασσω), but rather, as the KJV renders it, “submitting yourselves one to another”. In other words, the reflexive is to be understood as some to others, not as a symmetric reciprocation. The same idea of “some to others” is also present in phrases such as “waiting for one another” (1 Corinthians 11:33). The nature of the verb itself makes exact reciprocation impossible. (See W. Grudem, Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth, for a fuller discussion. Grudem showed how the egalitarian side has to import novel meanings to the original verbs to make their arguments.)

I will have to check my UBS Greek text to see how it breaks the paragraphs. In any case, I think for the editors of the Greek text to break paragraphs and insert headings (in English!) is somewhat tacky (遜!). Accent and breathing marks are fine as they have been in place implicitly since the beginning and can be easily deduced. Punctuation marks are tolerable, but in extreme cases can cause interpretive disputes as well. Paragraph breaks are almost tolerable to make the text more readable, but as shown above they can sometimes cause interpretive problems. Section headings are just unnecessary.

(UPDATE 2005-07-27 22:05): Since my Greek-NRSV interlinear is based on UBS 4th, it shouldn’t have surprised me that the UBS 4th Greek text also breaks the paragraph before 5:21. I had simply not made the connection between the two. (This evening I checked with my pastor’s Greek text, which must have been an earlier edition, since it has a paragraph break after 5:21.)

But the UBS 4th break does not seem right grammatically. For although the main verb υποτασσω (or its present middle imperative, υποτασσεσθε—cf. Col. 3:18) is missing in verse 22, the verbal idea of the participle υποτασσομενοι is easily deduced to carry over to this verse. Furthermore, υποτασσομενοι is masculine, and using it to as a participial phrase connected with verses 22–24, as is done in UBS 4th, would make it modify the subject αι γυναικες, which is feminine. Thus it is still more logical to group υποτασσομενοι with the preceding participles.