Table Fellowship and the Translation of 1 Corinthians 5:11

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) In a commonsense reading of 1 Cor 5:11, Paul adds insult to injury: But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one. (NRSV; emphasis mine) As William F. Orr and James Arthur Walther put it, "The dissociation is drastic: there is to be no table fellowship."1 This gloss captures a commonsense approach to Paul's prohibition "not to eat with such a person." Refusing to eat with someone is, it would seem, an extreme form of exclusion, a "drastic" instance of refusing to "associate" with that person. However, commonsense notions about ancient texts are frequently misleading, especially when they remain unexamined.2 In this case, modern ideas about table fellowship may be exerting an unwarranted influence on translators and interpreters of the text. The translation of the clause in question hinges on what BDF terms a "negative correlative," .... The Pauline text reads as follows:3 The major translations (NASB, NIV, NJB, NKJV, New Living Translation [NLT], RSV) and commentators agree in rendering ... in the last clause of this sentence as "not even" or its equivalent.4 In this translation, ... carries an exceptional force that is usually associated with .... Although ... indeed can, in certain cases, convey the sense "not even," the question here is whether this exceptional force is warranted in 1 Cor 5:11. This verse is not singled out for attention in BDF, which claims that .../ ... "remains the same as in classical" (§445). According to Herbert Weir Smyth, then, the default sense of .../... in classical usage is "ana not, nor" (§2163A), although ... in this compound word can mean "and, even, also, or but" (§2930), as context and usage may require.5 BAGD agrees, listing as the primary sense "and not, but not, nor continuing a preceding negation (almost always w. ...)," and listing "not even" for more specialized constructions (BAGD, s.v. ...). Under what circumstances, then, does ... tend to take the stronger sense "not even"? The construction ... ... ... alone does not resolve the matter (see Smyth §2932; BAGD, ... 1; and examples in the following paragraph); additional factors must be in play. According to BDF, "If... (...) stands at the beginning of the whole sentence or follows an ... (...) within the same clause, it means 'not even'" (§445). Neither rule holds for 1 Cor 5:11. As examples, BDF offers Mark 3:20 (... . . . ..., in which what follows ... is an infinitive that requires what follows ... for completion); Mark 8:26 (... introducing a prohibition with the subjunctive); and Matt 6:15 (... introducing an apodosis in which "not even" would be an overtranslation).6 None of these constructions parallels the ... . . . ... of 1 Cor 5:11. The examples Smyth offers for .../... in the sense "not even," however, present the same kinds of constructions: a single verb with ... . . . ... (Sophocles, Trachiniae 280), which agrees with the second part of the rule in BDF §445 cited above, and a negated infinitive (with ...) completed by a clause introduced by ... (Xenophon, Anabasis 6.6.25), which is similar to Mark 3:20. In these cases ... (...) is said to "resume a preceding ..." (Smyth §2939). The ... in 1 Cor 5:11 does not "resume" the earlier ... in an analogous way. Finally, BAGD offers, as instances of "not even," Mark 2:2 (... . . . ..., again where what follows ... completes a prior infinitive); Eph 5:3 (... introducing a prohibition); the first two verses given by BDF (Mark 3:20; 8:26); and 1 Cor 5:11. Neither Mark 2:2 nor Eph 5:3, however, offers any kind of warrant for rendering ... as "not even" in 1 Cor 5:11. On the other hand, BAGD offers many examples where ... in ... . . . ... is best rendered in keeping with the rubric "and not, but not, nor continuing a preceding negation (almost always w. …