ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Passage

Ephesians 2.20

Book: Ephesians · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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ASV

18. for through him we both have our access in one Spirit unto the Father. 19. So then ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God,

20. being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone;

  1. in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; 22. in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:18-22, ASV)
WEB

18. For through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. 19. So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God,

20. being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone;

  1. in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord; 22. in whom you also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:18-22, WEB)
KJV

18. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. 19. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;

20. And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;

  1. In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: 22. In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:18-22, KJV)
YLT

18. because through him we have the access, we both, in one Spirit unto the Father. 19. Then, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens of the saints, and of the household of God,

20. being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being chief corner -[stone],

  1. in whom all the building fitly framed together doth increase to an holy sanctuary in the Lord, 22. in whom also ye are builded together, for a habitation of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:18-22, YLT)

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Setting

  • Speaker: Paul the Apostle.
  • Audience: Believers at Ephesus. Several of the earliest witnesses, including P46 and the original hands of Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, lack the words "in Ephesus" at 1:1, which has long suggested the letter circulated among the churches of the Roman province of Asia rather than addressing one congregation alone.
  • Location: Written from imprisonment. Paul calls himself "the prisoner of Christ Jesus" (Eph 3:1, 4:1) and "an ambassador in chains" (Eph 6:20); the traditional identification is the Roman custody of Acts 28.
  • Time period: c. AD 60-62 on the traditional Roman-imprisonment dating.

Theological reading

The verse gives the church a foundation and a cornerstone: epoikodomēthentes epi tō themeliō tōn apostolōn kai prophētōn, ontos akrogōniaiou autou Christou Iēsou.

Whose foundation. Tou themeliou tōn apostolōn kai prophētōn reads most naturally as an appositional genitive, the foundation consisting of the apostles and prophets, rather than a foundation they themselves rest on. This is not in competition with 1 Corinthians 3:11, where Christ is the only foundation. The metaphors are doing different work, and here Christ occupies the cornerstone position rather than the foundation course.

Which prophets. The single article governing both nouns, together with the parallel at 3:5 where the mystery is revealed "to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit," points to New Testament prophets rather than to the Old Testament writing prophets. That reading also fits the argument, since the paragraph concerns the newly constituted community of Jew and Gentile, whose foundation is the apostolic generation through whom the mystery was disclosed.

Akrogōniaios. The term can denote a cornerstone laid at the foundation to set the building's lines, or a capstone completing an arch. The foundation sense fits the immediate building metaphor and the citation tradition behind it, Isaiah 28:16 and Psalm 118:22, both applied to Christ elsewhere in the New Testament. On either reading the stone is the member that determines the alignment of everything joined to it, which is exactly what the next verse says: en hō pasa oikodomē synarmologoumenē, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows.

Apologetic use. A foundation is laid once. The verse is the standard reply to later-revelation claims, whether a further prophet, a restored apostleship or a new dispensation of scripture, since a building whose foundation keeps being relaid was never founded. The force of that argument depends on reading apostolōn kai prophētōn as the apostolic generation, which is why the exegesis carries the weight and not the slogan.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Concepts:

People:

Lexicon:

Guides:

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

  • ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
  • WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
  • KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
  • YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.