John 5:29
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Sep 30 09:17:41 EDT 1998
At 7:11 AM -0500 9/30/98, John M. Sweigart wrote:
>Fellow list members:
>I've been looking carefully at John 5:29. Several questions present
>themselves. One is grammatical. How should we understand the genitives
>"of life" and "of judgment/condemnation"? Two are lexical. Is there
>any justification for translating PHAULA as "evil" which is done in the
>NASV? Is there any justification for translating KRISIS as
>"judgment/condemnation"? In LSJ this translation seems to be a very
>minor usage. One is theological (perhaps outside the bounds of the
>list--if so reply off list). Are two groups of believers in view or
>must we conclude that the second group are unbelievers. The second view
>is problematical for me due to the parallel with 2 Cor. 5:10 in the use
>of PHAULA. Any comments would be helpful.
This IS an interesting passage: text: KAI EKPOREUSONTAI hOI TA AGAQA
POIHSANTES EIS ANASTASIN ZWHS, hOI DE TA FAULA PRAXANTES EIS ANASTASIN
KRISEWS.
(a) I think the genitives are to be understood in terms of final
destination after appearance before the tribunal of last judgment: all must
be raised, so all undergo resurrection, but the "sleepers" will be "raised"
in the one instance to Life, in the other to Condemnation.
(b) Yes, I think in this instance there can hardly be any question but that
FAULA means evil; it clearly stands in antithesis to AGAQA; I don't
understand what the problem is with the parallel in 2 Cor 5:10, where
AGAQON and FAULON, in this instance in the singular, are used similarly in
antithetical senses of "good" and "evil." I find it interesting and not a
little amusing that the classical adjective KAKOS/H/ON--which originally
meant "worthless," "incompetent" and only later assumed the moral sense of
"evil"--has yielded in the Koiné to adjectives such as PONHROS/A/ON and
FAULOS/H/ON for the moral sense of "evil." The fact is that in earlier
Greek these words had less clear moral senses: PONHROS originally meant
"working class"--hence "worthless," while FAULOS tended to mean "trifling,"
"insignificant"--hence "worthless." I guess that all these words which
originally meant simply "of no value" gradually came to take on the moral
sense of "evil."
(c) While properly speaking KRISIS means "judgment," "discerning,"
"discrimination," or "decision" (the original root sense of KRI- seems to
be "distinguish between"), the simple noun often does service for the
negative judgment/judgment as negative: condemnation. That is, commonly or
at least somewhat more commonly one finds KATA- compounds such as KATAKRINW
or KATAGINWSKW used for this negative judgment or condemnation, but the
facile equation of "judgment" with "condemnation" is by no means uncommon
in the usage of the verb KRINW and its cognate noun KRISIS.
(d) The last question is whether two groups of BELIEVERS are in view here;
I don't think so; I think that this formulation is in terms of the
traditional Jewish apocalyptic view (indeed, the Zoroastrian apocalyptic
view) that all humanity will be raised in the end-time and be judged in
terms of their good or evil actions. In this instance I don't think BELIEF
IN JESUS is envisioned as a criterion for judgment, although a few verses
earlier in 5:24 Jesus says, hO TON LOGON MOU AKOUWN KAI PISTEUWN TWi
PEMYANTI ME ECEI ZWHN AIWNION KAI EIS KRISIN OUC ERCETAI, ALLA METABEBHKEN
EK TOU QANATOU EIS THN ZWHN. As I read this, the sense I derive from it is
that believers do not face judgment at all; indeed, it is said that they
have already completed the transition from death to life--they are alive
NOW (Johannine realized eschatology); 5:29 however seems phrased in terms
of standard Jewish apocalyptic with the conception of final judgment based
upon good or evil behavior.
I would add that the larger matter of Johannine eschatology itself is
probably too complex and perhaps controversial for discussion in its own
right on B-Greek, although it doesn't seem unreasonable to tackle
individual verses that have eschatological implications and to endeavor to
exegete them individually.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad at yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 4375 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/attachments/19980930/c57f6cb7/attachment.bin
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list