John 8:25

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MAubrey
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Re: John 8:25

Post by MAubrey »

David Lim wrote:And BDF had been disproved earlier too.
If by "disproved" you that you didn't like it, then yes.
David Lim wrote:I do not consider what other people say as evidence unless it can be verified, and it does not matter who they are.
To some extent, yes that is the case, but at the same time, opinions are kind of like textual variants, though. They must be weighed, not counted. How much do yours weight?
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Re: John 8:25

Post by Stephen Carlson »

David Lim wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:
David Lim wrote:Okay. In the entry you quote, "ο τι" is only used in content clauses, and could simply mean something like "[that] which why", which explains why it does not occur in direct questions. So I still see no evidence for the claim that it can be read as an interrogative.
BDF § 300(2) has been cited, copied, and pasted on this very point earlier in the thread. That's not "no evidence."
And BDF had been disproved earlier too.
Evidence you don't like is not "no evidence." And it hasn't been "disproved" -- as if that's the right way to think about things. We're not doing mathematics where the language of "proof" and "disproof" is appropriate. Rather, what we're trying to understand is a language where there are a number of various options and analogies to consider with varying probabilities. Indeed, nothing you've said earlier in the thread calls into doubt the general statement in BDF § 300(2)(b) that the distinction between direct and indirect questions was being obliterated in the Koine period.
David Lim wrote:I do not consider what other people say as evidence unless it can be verified, and it does not matter who they are.
That's certainly admirable. More people should be that way.
David Lim wrote:As it stands, BDF's claim that "οτι" is always used to translate certain interrogatives in the LXX is completely false, so I have no reason to believe that it is a reliable source.
I'm afraid you've misunderstood BDF. The claim is:
BDF § 300(2)(b) wrote:(b) In the LXX this ὅ τι always renders interrogative pronouns meaning ‘why’ such as מָה, לָמָּה, מַדּוּעַ.
What this means is that whenever you find a direct question ὅ τι ("this ὅ τι") in manuscripts of the LXX, the corresponding Hebrew source always has the listed interrogative pronouns. BDF even cites the passages where they believe this occurs (2 Km 7:7 B, etc.).

Unfortunately, your attempt to test BDF's statement showed that you got the implication in the wrong direction, as if they were claiming that every time the Hebrew had one of these interrogatives, ὅ τι is always to translate it. Moreover, you did not address each and every example in the manuscripts of the LXX that BDF cited, so your verification was incomplete. Indeed, some of these are variant readings which are not found in online versions of the LXX, so your computer won't find them. Furthermore, of those passages that you happened to consider earlier in the thread (e.g. Jer 22:28), you asserted that the Greek was not rendering the Hebrew accurately, which begs the very question under discussion.

Since you've apparently misunderstood BDF, devised the wrong test for its actual claim, failed to examine all the passages it actually cited, and begged the question in the ones that you did examine, I think BDF's deservedly high reputation is intact (for the moment).

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Iver Larsen
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Re: John 8:25

Post by Iver Larsen »

David,

I appreciate your desire to see data. I agree that the sentence is not normal Classical or indeed normal Koine Greek, but Greek with a Semitic influence. That is why it is helpful to look at the Hebrew OT and the LXX for parallels. You did a commendable job of that in an earlier post.
It seems most likely that the underlying text is or corresponds to Hebrew lamma לְמָה.
Let me take you back to 2 Sam 7:7 and the parallel 1 Chronicles 17:6:
Text translated from Hebrew: Why have you not built me a house of cedar?
LXX: λέγων ὅτι oὐκ ᾠκοδομήκατέ μοι οἶκον κέδρινον

You said that this could be understood differently as if it was to mean: saying that you have not built me a house of cedar. That is true, It could be construed in this way. However, since we know the Hebrew, we know this is not the correct interpretation of the Semitic Greek. Here ὅτι is actually ὅ τι, and it means "Why?"

I agree that ὅ τι (or ὅ τί?) is not a very common translation of Hebrew lamma, ἵνα τί is more common. It may help to think of ἵνα τί as "for what purpose?" and ὅ τί/τι as "for what reason?". This last one is related to "for the reason that" and "because".

You also quoted Gen 12:18-19 where we have a host of questions.
καλέσας δὲ Φαραω τὸν Αβραμ εἶπεν Τί τοῦτο ἐποίησάς μοι; ὅ τι οὐκ ἀπήγγειλάς μοι ὅτι γυνή σού ἐστιν; 19 ἵνα τί εἶπας ὅτι Ἀδελφή μού ἐστιν;
(Then) Farao having called Abraham said: What is this you have done to me? For what reason did you not report to me that she is your wife? For what purpose did you say: "She is my sister"?
Hebrew prefers direct speech, but they are often turned into indirect or semi-direct speech, so the difference between direct and indirect speech becomes blurred in this kind of Semitic Greek.

Let us also look at Deut 5:25:
But now, why should we die? (NIV)
Here the Hebrew lamma follows an adverb which is not easy to translate.
LXX: καὶ νῦν μὴ ἀποθάνωμεν
The LXX translator did not render the "why" in order to produce a more idiomatic version in Greek.
I am not saying that Jesus used this particular Hebrew adverb before the "why", only that it is possible in Hebrew to place an adverb before the "why".

Alex quioted:
Beasley-Murray gives six translational options, and variants as well. He acknowledges the proponents of each understanding and discusses their merits in a brief discussion on pages 125-126 to which the student is referred. The translational options he identifies are these:

'Why do I speak to you at all?'
'Primarily what I am telling you.'
'(I am) from the beginning what I tell you.'
'(I am) what I have been telling you from the beginning.'
'I told you at the beginning that which also I am speaking to you (now).'
'I am the beginning, that which I am saying to you.'

The last of these is based on the Latin versions, which rest on a misunderstanding of the Greek, and needs no consideration. The second-last is the rendering of Bruce (194) and is based on the Papyrus Bodmer II (P66) reading, not on the text as given in the UBS edition.
So, we discard the last two. Numbers 3 and 4 add the words "I am" whiuch are not in the text, nor are they implied, so we can discard those.
Numbers 2, 3 and 4 all completely ignore the emphatic adverb καὶ which makes them highly dubious.
Only number one takes καὶ into consideration as long as we adjust to "Why (for what reason) do I even speak to you at all?" The words "even" and "at all" support one another to give added emphasis.

So, Mark, this is really the simplest interpretation that is also able to account for all the words in the text as well as the word order once we accept the Semitic flavour of a Greek text translated from Hebrew (or Aramaic)

Iver
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Re: John 8:25

Post by Iver Larsen »

If we have problems translating Τὴν ἀρχὴν as "at all" in
Τὴν ἀρχὴν ὅ τι καὶ λαλῶ ὑμῖν;
what about saying something like: "To begin with, why do I even speak to you?"

I am not a native English speaker, so I am not sure how idiomatic this is. Whatever we say, the frustration with their unbelief is clear enough.

Iver Larsen
David Lim
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Re: John 8:25

Post by David Lim »

MAubrey wrote:
David Lim wrote:I do not consider what other people say as evidence unless it can be verified, and it does not matter who they are.
To some extent, yes that is the case, but at the same time, opinions are kind of like textual variants, though. They must be weighed, not counted. How much do yours weight?
Depends on your weighing scale I suppose. ;) Anyway opinions of the structure of text are not textual variants. Of course they must be weighed. For example if anyone claims that every Greek phrase can be conveyed with a string of only Greek articles, you should give that opinion zero weight because it is not a text itself and there are no texts that support it at all. Neither should we weigh what anyone says simply according to who he is, but according to each of his statements individually. BDF could be accurate for the most part yet incorrect on that particular point for whatever reason.
Stephen Carlson wrote:
David Lim wrote:As it stands, BDF's claim that "οτι" is always used to translate certain interrogatives in the LXX is completely false, so I have no reason to believe that it is a reliable source.
I'm afraid you've misunderstood BDF. The claim is:
BDF § 300(2)(b) wrote:(b) In the LXX this ὅ τι always renders interrogative pronouns meaning ‘why’ such as מָה, לָמָּה, מַדּוּעַ.
What this means is that whenever you find a direct question ὅ τι ("this ὅ τι") in manuscripts of the LXX, the corresponding Hebrew source always has the listed interrogative pronouns. BDF even cites the passages where they believe this occurs (2 Km 7:7 B, etc.).
This is circular logic. It is equivalent to saying, "whenever you find an instance in which my interpretation is correct, you will find that indeed it is correct." Therefore I did not even think of this as what BDF was saying. Moreover, here is the "passage where they believe this occurs" that you quote:
[2 Sam 7] [7] εν πασιν οις διηλθον εν παντι ισραηλ ει λαλων ελαλησα προς μιαν φυλην του ισραηλ ω ενετειλαμην ποιμαινειν τον λαον μου ισραηλ λεγων τι οτι ουκ ωκοδομηκατε μοι οικον κεδρινον
Which, as I said before, shows that the interrogative is never omitted because "οτι" cannot function as an interrogative.
Stephen Carlson wrote:Unfortunately, your attempt to test BDF's statement showed that you got the implication in the wrong direction, as if they were claiming that every time the Hebrew had one of these interrogatives, ὅ τι is always to translate it. Moreover, you did not address each and every example in the manuscripts of the LXX that BDF cited, so your verification was incomplete. Indeed, some of these are variant readings which are not found in online versions of the LXX, so your computer won't find them.
Yes, indeed you may say that my verification was incomplete in the absolute sense, but it was complete enough to draw reasonable conclusions. I reject instances with any textual variants because we cannot conclude anything when we do not know the original text. To prove that "οτι" can really be used as an interrogative, you need to find examples where there are no textual variants and no interrogative anywhere.
Stephen Carlson wrote:Furthermore, of those passages that you happened to consider earlier in the thread (e.g. Jer 22:28), you asserted that the Greek was not rendering the Hebrew accurately, which begs the very question under discussion.
I do not think that anyone doubts that the LXX does not always render the extant Hebrew text word-for-word-literally. If it is reasonably certain that it does not in some place, then it is unsound to claim that it is and then to draw inferences based on that very shaky assumption.
Stephen Carlson wrote:Since you've apparently misunderstood BDF, devised the wrong test for its actual claim, failed to examine all the passages it actually cited, and begged the question in the ones that you did examine, I think BDF's deservedly high reputation is intact (for the moment).
Whether BDF deserves a high reputation I do not know. One thing I know: its statement is invalid.
Iver Larsen wrote:David,

I appreciate your desire to see data. I agree that the sentence is not normal Classical or indeed normal Koine Greek, but Greek with a Semitic influence. That is why it is helpful to look at the Hebrew OT and the LXX for parallels. You did a commendable job of that in an earlier post.
It seems most likely that the underlying text is or corresponds to Hebrew lamma לְמָה.
Let me take you back to 2 Sam 7:7 and the parallel 1 Chronicles 17:6:
Text translated from Hebrew: Why have you not built me a house of cedar?
LXX: λέγων ὅτι oὐκ ᾠκοδομήκατέ μοι οἶκον κέδρινον

You said that this could be understood differently as if it was to mean: saying that you have not built me a house of cedar. That is true, It could be construed in this way. However, since we know the Hebrew, we know this is not the correct interpretation of the Semitic Greek. Here ὅτι is actually ὅ τι, and it means "Why?"
The fact that it could be understood differently because there was an earlier interrogative implies that we cannot use it as evidence for a claim that "οτι" means "why". Also, if you noticed some of the examples of the Hebrew interrogative that I listed and marked as paraphrases do not have the word "οτι" to begin with, showing that we cannot use the Hebrew text to conclude the meaning of the LXX, since it would result in nonsensical conclusions if we insist that the Hebrew interrogative must have been rendered in those cases.
Iver Larsen wrote:You also quoted Gen 12:18-19 where we have a host of questions.
καλέσας δὲ Φαραω τὸν Αβραμ εἶπεν Τί τοῦτο ἐποίησάς μοι; ὅ τι οὐκ ἀπήγγειλάς μοι ὅτι γυνή σού ἐστιν; 19 ἵνα τί εἶπας ὅτι Ἀδελφή μού ἐστιν;
(Then) Farao having called Abraham said: What is this you have done to me? For what reason did you not report to me that she is your wife? For what purpose did you say: "She is my sister"?
Hebrew prefers direct speech, but they are often turned into indirect or semi-direct speech, so the difference between direct and indirect speech becomes blurred in this kind of Semitic Greek.
Indeed the LXX often does not render what are questions in the Hebrew text as questions. It does not imply that there is a blurring of direct and indirect speech in the LXX, but simply implies that we cannot expect the Hebrew interrogative to be rendered and thus we do not need to find any word on which to place the burden of interrogation.
Iver Larsen wrote:Let us also look at Deut 5:25:
But now, why should we die? (NIV)
Here the Hebrew lamma follows an adverb which is not easy to translate.
LXX: καὶ νῦν μὴ ἀποθάνωμεν
The LXX translator did not render the "why" in order to produce a more idiomatic version in Greek.
I am not saying that Jesus used this particular Hebrew adverb before the "why", only that it is possible in Hebrew to place an adverb before the "why".
The claim is that "οτι" can be an interrogative, and not only that but even after an adverb. Deut 5:25, as you agree, has "οτι" that is not even used as an interrogative. So it is irrelevant whether there is an adverb in the Hebrew text.
Iver Larsen wrote:Alex quioted:
Beasley-Murray gives six translational options, and variants as well. He acknowledges the proponents of each understanding and discusses their merits in a brief discussion on pages 125-126 to which the student is referred. The translational options he identifies are these:

'Why do I speak to you at all?'
'Primarily what I am telling you.'
'(I am) from the beginning what I tell you.'
'(I am) what I have been telling you from the beginning.'
'I told you at the beginning that which also I am speaking to you (now).'
'I am the beginning, that which I am saying to you.'

The last of these is based on the Latin versions, which rest on a misunderstanding of the Greek, and needs no consideration. The second-last is the rendering of Bruce (194) and is based on the Papyrus Bodmer II (P66) reading, not on the text as given in the UBS edition.
So, we discard the last two. Numbers 3 and 4 add the words "I am" whiuch are not in the text, nor are they implied, so we can discard those.
Numbers 2, 3 and 4 all completely ignore the emphatic adverb καὶ which makes them highly dubious.
Only number one takes καὶ into consideration as long as we adjust to "Why (for what reason) do I even speak to you at all?" The words "even" and "at all" support one another to give added emphasis.

So, Mark, this is really the simplest interpretation that is also able to account for all the words in the text as well as the word order once we accept the Semitic flavour of a Greek text translated from Hebrew (or Aramaic)

Iver
We cannot discard the second last option, which is actually the most accurate paraphrase. The fourth option, as you said, omit the "και", but means essentially the same thing though not quite explicitly. The third option is clearly incorrect for the reasons I gave earlier, that is, if the adverb modifies "ειμι", "ειμι" should be explicit. The first is invalid unless someone provides the evidence I asked for, since it is only based on opinions so far and the phrase would have been easily understood in the sense of the second last option. Also, as I said earlier I did not see evidence in LSJ that "την αρχην" can be used as an adverb modifying the entire sentence. So these two make me highly dubious of any such rendering.
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Re: John 8:25

Post by David Lim »

Iver Larsen wrote:If we have problems translating Τὴν ἀρχὴν as "at all" in
Τὴν ἀρχὴν ὅ τι καὶ λαλῶ ὑμῖν;
what about saying something like: "To begin with, why do I even speak to you?"

I am not a native English speaker, so I am not sure how idiomatic this is. Whatever we say, the frustration with their unbelief is clear enough.

Iver Larsen
Both are perfectly idiomatic English but in my opinion incorrect translations. In your English phrases "at all" tends to be understood as modifying the verb clause "I speak to you" whereas "to begin with" can only modify the entire sentence, so they mean different things. "at all" also tends to be understood as "in the slightest" although it can also mean "ever". So "why do I speak to you at all?" is usually understood to mean "why do I speak to you even one word?" rather than "why did I ever speak to you?"
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Re: John 8:25

Post by Stephen Carlson »

David Lim wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:
David Lim wrote:As it stands, BDF's claim that "οτι" is always used to translate certain interrogatives in the LXX is completely false, so I have no reason to believe that it is a reliable source.
I'm afraid you've misunderstood BDF. The claim is:
BDF § 300(2)(b) wrote:(b) In the LXX this ὅ τι always renders interrogative pronouns meaning ‘why’ such as מָה, לָמָּה, מַדּוּעַ.
What this means is that whenever you find a direct question ὅ τι ("this ὅ τι") in manuscripts of the LXX, the corresponding Hebrew source always has the listed interrogative pronouns. BDF even cites the passages where they believe this occurs (2 Km 7:7 B, etc.).
This is circular logic. It is equivalent to saying, "whenever you find an instance in which my interpretation is correct, you will find that indeed it is correct." Therefore I did not even think of this as what BDF was saying.
No, it's not circular; it's corroboratory. The Hebrew is evidence of what the translation Greek means. Admittedly, the way you've misinterpreted BDF would have been stronger evidence of this meaning of ὅ τι, but their actual claim is more limited and careful.
David Lim wrote:Moreover, here is the "passage where they believe this occurs" that you quote:
[2 Sam 7] [7] εν πασιν οις διηλθον εν παντι ισραηλ ει λαλων ελαλησα προς μιαν φυλην του ισραηλ ω ενετειλαμην ποιμαινειν τον λαον μου ισραηλ λεγων τι οτι ουκ ωκοδομηκατε μοι οικον κεδρινον
Which, as I said before, shows that the interrogative is never omitted because "οτι" cannot function as an interrogative.
Your highlighting of τι in red demonstrates that you have not understood BDF's entry and therefore have not considered all their evidence. Their "B" after the citation means that this is the text of Codex Vaticanus, which does not have the very word you highlighted in red.
David Lim wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:Unfortunately, your attempt to test BDF's statement showed that you got the implication in the wrong direction, as if they were claiming that every time the Hebrew had one of these interrogatives, ὅ τι is always to translate it. Moreover, you did not address each and every example in the manuscripts of the LXX that BDF cited, so your verification was incomplete. Indeed, some of these are variant readings which are not found in online versions of the LXX, so your computer won't find them.
Yes, indeed you may say that my verification was incomplete in the absolute sense, but it was complete enough to draw reasonable conclusions.
Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but when I hear someone confidently--without any humility--claim that there is "no evidence" for a proposition, I expect him to have diligently examined at a minimum the very evidence that BDF has cited. This you have not done. Incomplete verification is simply inconsistent with your earlier claim of "no evidence."
David Lim wrote:I reject instances with any textual variants because we cannot conclude anything when we do not know the original text. To prove that "οτι" can really be used as an interrogative, you need to find examples where there are no textual variants and no interrogative anywhere.
Again, evidence you don't like or don't understand is not "no evidence." Textual variation is a fact of life when dealing with these texts and the sooner you accept it, the sooner you'll be able to handle it. It is improper to ignore evidence you don't like on the ground that there is textual variation.

Of course the reason for the textual variation here is that the use of ὅ τι in a direct question is non-literary Greek, so scribes were inclined to improve the text. Indeed, the principles of textual criticism, especially the canon of lectio difficilior, would weigh in favor of determining these problematic ὅ τι readings to be "original."
David Lim wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:Furthermore, of those passages that you happened to consider earlier in the thread (e.g. Jer 22:28), you asserted that the Greek was not rendering the Hebrew accurately, which begs the very question under discussion.
I do not think that anyone doubts that the LXX does not always render the extant Hebrew text word-for-word-literally. If it is reasonably certain that it does not in some place, then it is unsound to claim that it is and then to draw inferences based on that very shaky assumption.
There's a difference between not rendering the Hebrew literally in "some place," and not rendering the Hebrew in the very place under discussion. That's not a license to ignore evidence.
David Lim wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:Since you've apparently misunderstood BDF, devised the wrong test for its actual claim, failed to examine all the passages it actually cited, and begged the question in the ones that you did examine, I think BDF's deservedly high reputation is intact (for the moment).
Whether BDF deserves a high reputation I do not know. One thing I know: its statement is invalid.
I only got into this discussion because you claimed there was "no evidence" for a particular understanding of ὅ τι. Now that you've admitted your "verification was incomplete" for BDF's evidence, I am confident that your claim of "no evidence" rests on an inadequate basis.

It would have been much better if you had tried to address BDF's claim (properly understood) and the evidence they cited rather than dig in your heels, but I'm not responsible for your reputation.

Stephen
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Re: John 8:25

Post by David Lim »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
David Lim wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:What this means is that whenever you find a direct question ὅ τι ("this ὅ τι") in manuscripts of the LXX, the corresponding Hebrew source always has the listed interrogative pronouns. BDF even cites the passages where they believe this occurs (2 Km 7:7 B, etc.).
This is circular logic. It is equivalent to saying, "whenever you find an instance in which my interpretation is correct, you will find that indeed it is correct." Therefore I did not even think of this as what BDF was saying.
No, it's not circular; it's corroboratory. The Hebrew is evidence of what the translation Greek means. Admittedly, the way you've misinterpreted BDF would have been stronger evidence of this meaning of ὅ τι, but their actual claim is more limited and careful.
The Hebrew is not evidence of what the Greek translation means if we have to rely on an interpretation of whether the Greek translation rendered the interrogative. That is not corroboratory evidence but self-affirmation.
Stephen Carlson wrote:
David Lim wrote:Moreover, here is the "passage where they believe this occurs" that you quote:
[2 Sam 7] [7] εν πασιν οις διηλθον εν παντι ισραηλ ει λαλων ελαλησα προς μιαν φυλην του ισραηλ ω ενετειλαμην ποιμαινειν τον λαον μου ισραηλ λεγων τι οτι ουκ ωκοδομηκατε μοι οικον κεδρινον
Which, as I said before, shows that the interrogative is never omitted because "οτι" cannot function as an interrogative.
Your highlighting of τι in red demonstrates that you have not understood BDF's entry and therefore have not considered all their evidence. Their "B" after the citation means that this is the text of Codex Vaticanus, which does not have the very word you highlighted in red.
I know that is the problem, which is why I make it clear that I do not accept instances with textual variants as valid, as I will explain below.
Stephen Carlson wrote:
David Lim wrote:Yes, indeed you may say that my verification was incomplete in the absolute sense, but it was complete enough to draw reasonable conclusions.
Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but when I hear someone confidently--without any humility--claim that there is "no evidence" for a proposition, I expect him to have diligently examined at a minimum the very evidence that BDF has cited. This you have not done. Incomplete verification is simply inconsistent with your earlier claim of "no evidence."
I did not confidently and without humility claim that there is no evidence. I asked for clear evidence but no one provided any, so I stated that I had not seen any evidence. As I said, I would of course change my mind if I see clear evidence, but I really do not have the time at the moment to find something that I believe is essentially impossible to find.
Stephen Carlson wrote:
David Lim wrote:I reject instances with any textual variants because we cannot conclude anything when we do not know the original text. To prove that "οτι" can really be used as an interrogative, you need to find examples where there are no textual variants and no interrogative anywhere.
Again, evidence you don't like or don't understand is not "no evidence." Textual variation is a fact of life when dealing with these texts and the sooner you accept it, the sooner you'll be able to handle it. It is improper to ignore evidence you don't like on the ground that there is textual variation.

Of course the reason for the textual variation here is that the use of ὅ τι in a direct question is non-literary Greek, so scribes were inclined to improve the text. Indeed, the principles of textual criticism, especially the canon of lectio difficilior, would weigh in favor of determining these problematic ὅ τι readings to be "original."
Then I will make it clear that I cannot agree with that so-called "canon" because the opposite claim could also be true that those readings in which "τι" was missing could be copying errors as I stated earlier. This comes down to a matter of opinions, so to avoid it I merely asked for examples with no variant readings, and I do not think this is an unreasonable request.
Stephen Carlson wrote:
David Lim wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:Furthermore, of those passages that you happened to consider earlier in the thread (e.g. Jer 22:28), you asserted that the Greek was not rendering the Hebrew accurately, which begs the very question under discussion.
I do not think that anyone doubts that the LXX does not always render the extant Hebrew text word-for-word-literally. If it is reasonably certain that it does not in some place, then it is unsound to claim that it is and then to draw inferences based on that very shaky assumption.
There's a difference between not rendering the Hebrew literally in "some place," and not rendering the Hebrew in the very place under discussion. That's not a license to ignore evidence.
Can you show me why you think the places I marked as paraphrases are not in fact paraphrases? Iver agreed at least for some that it could indeed be considered to be so.
Stephen Carlson wrote:I only got into this discussion because you claimed there was "no evidence" for a particular understanding of ὅ τι. Now that you've admitted your "verification was incomplete" for BDF's evidence, I am confident that your claim of "no evidence" rests on an inadequate basis.

It would have been much better if you had tried to address BDF's claim (properly understood) and the evidence they cited rather than dig in your heels, but I'm not responsible for your reputation.

Stephen
I think it is clear that that particular statement in BDF is a self-affirmation and therefore not valid evidence. And I do not care about reputation; I care about knowing the truth. If the truth is that BDF is correct, then I would like to see direct confirmation and not ambiguous examples. If not, I would like to keep my stand. Thanks for your discussion, and sorry if you were offended by my apparent stubbornness.
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Re: John 8:25

Post by Stephen Carlson »

David Lim wrote:I think it is clear that that particular statement in BDF is a self-affirmation and therefore not valid evidence. And I do not care about reputation; I care about knowing the truth. If the truth is that BDF is correct, then I would like to see direct confirmation and not ambiguous examples. If not, I would like to keep my stand. Thanks for your discussion, and sorry if you were offended by my apparent stubbornness.
We all care about understanding the truth, but sometimes there are situations where there are only ambiguous examples at hand and we have to deal with them as best we can. I will close my participation by noting that BDAG has a fairly detailed section on the use of ὅ τι as interrogative in direct questions with citations to the literature. Any person interested in getting an informed opinion about this issue would do well to follow up those citations.

Stephen
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Re: John 8:25

Post by Scott Lawson »

Stephen Carlson wrote:BDF § 300(2)(b) wrote:
(b) In the LXX this ὅ τι always renders interrogative pronouns meaning ‘why’ such as מָה, לָמָּה, מַדּוּעַ.
Thank you, Stephen, for clarifying that statement.

As I noted in my opening post:

"Though Blass feels the use of ὄτι as a direct interrogative is “quite incredible”, Robertson finds Blass’ remark to be impossible to justify in the light of the facts. (R.729)"

It would seem that David finds himself in company with Blass and for me Robertson's comments have taken on greater meaning because of this discussion.

Thanks also, to Iver, whose comments have given me a nudge.

Scott
Scott Lawson
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