Sunday, February 26, 2023

Galatians 6:14

Last month, a footnote in The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume II led me to Galatians 6, where I found an interesting feature in verse 14:  "But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."

The clauses "the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" exhibit a chiastic structure, so it's almost as if Paul's boasting in the cross suffuses even how he talks about it.

When I lookt up the Greek text, however, I found that this structure isn't present there:
ἐμοὶ κόσμος ἐσταύρωται κἀγὼ κόσμῳ
nor it is present in the Latin Vulgate or my German translation, but it is in the NIV and the NKJV, both of which also render this as "the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."

It's also in my French New Testament:
le monde est crucifié pour moi, comme je le suis pour le monde