John 20:28 and Augustine

Maurice A. O'Sullivan mauros at iol.ie
Mon Feb 5 11:27:09 EST 2001


At 11:37 05/02/01, "Alex / Ali" <alexali at surf.net.au> wrote:

>and then seeing the risen Lord, who tells her not to touch him;

Well, it is certainly news to me that that the "   noli me tangere  " on 
which Augustine relied is an accurate rendering of MH MOU hAPTOU.

Dodd [ "Interpretation " ] pointed out the distinction between the present 
imperative
[ to hold, grasp, cling ]  and the aorist imperative  [ to touch ] meaning 
of this verb, Zerwick  [ Biblical Greek: Illustrated by Examples ] ( at s. 
497 translates it " do not cling to me "
[as in NRSV, NJB,  RSV = "do not hold me ", and NAB = "Stop holding on to me" ]
and Brown [ Brown, Raymond E. The Gospel According to John. 2 vols. London: 
Geoffrey Chrapman, 1966.] is unusually acerbic ( vol. 2  p. 992 ) in 
examining various explanations of why it should be translated " do not 
touch me ", dismissing them as ranging from " the utterly banal" to " 
fanciful ".



Maurice A. O'Sullivan  [ Bray, Ireland ]
mauros at iol.ie






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