Stephen Hughes wrote:John 11:44 wrote:καὶ ἡ ὄψις αὐτοῦ σουδαρίῳ περιεδέδετο .
By using ὄψις "face" (BDAG 3.) is the nuance intended that Lazarus could not see, or that they could not see it was Lazarus? Both of the interpretations are allowable from context. I hope to understand enough to make a valid choice between the two.
In other words, is ὄψις is face as the part of the body possessed of the faculty of sight, or the part of the body that we see and recognise people by (either as individuals distinct from others or what mood or emotion someone is expressing)?
[This question is in aid of understanding the synonym pair πρόσωπον (BDAG 1a) and ὄψις (BDAG 3) (listed in L&N at 8.18).]
Synonyms sometimes are and sometimes aren't. My quick mental review was shamelessly etymological: ὄψις is a person's "look" or "looks" -- how a person "looks" -his/her "face" or, if we prefer the French-derived expression, "visage"; πρόωσπον, on the other hand, is "what you look at" and "what you recognize a person by". To that extent, the two Greek words are synonymous. For evidence of the synonymity, note two texts cited by L&N 8:.18 are unquestionably synonymous:
ἔλαμψεν τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ὡς ὁ ἥλιος ‘his face shone like the sun’ Mt 17:2.
ἡ ὄψις αὐτοῦ ὡς ὁ ἥλιος φαίνει ‘his face was shining like the sun’ Re 1:16.]
On the other hand, the πρόσωπον is the "recognizable person", the distinctive self as in
dramatis personae or τά τοῦ δράματος πρόσωπα or, in Trinitarian doctrine the τρία πρόσωπα of God, while ὄψις is the -σις "action" nominal derivative from the verb-root οπ-, "seeing" or the faculty of "sight" or "vision" -- nor would I claim that's exhaustive. We're dealing here with words that in one usage are synonymous but not in other usages. We've often discussed the question of the synonymity of ἀγαπᾶν and φιλεῖν in Jn 21. There are those who still maintain there's a nuanced distinction between the two verbs in the dialogue between Jesus and Peter there.