Jn 7.37
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Aug 2 22:05:13 EDT 1999
At 11:59 AM +1200 8/3/99, N & RJ Hanscamp wrote:
>Could someone comment on the use of the pres middle imperative ERCESQW in
>Jn 7.37. Should this be seen as a command, or does the EAN at the
>beginning of the clause soften it?
I've always assumed that this is an allusion to Isaiah 55:1 and John 4:14;
it is an invitation, fundamentally, but as usual with Biblical invitations,
there is always a sharp suggestion that one's positive or negative response
to the invitation is fraught with ultimate consequences for the invitee--so
perhaps we should call it a "polite" command.
>Second is the perenial problem of punctuation in this passage. Comments on
>the UBS stop after PINETW would be appreciated.
With Jim, I don't understand why this punctuation should be thought
problematic. Verse 38 certainly continues with a statement closely related
to the preceding, and the sense is not going to be affected radically by
whether we read a full stop after PINETW, so far as I can see. Personally,
I'm one of those nuts who likes to uses semicolons in my writing in order
to indicate that my periodic structure hasn't yet reached its end; perhaps
that comes from Greek and Latin training; I rather think modern English is
overeager to spit out a period-mark after every clause.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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