John 17:25

Michael Haggett michaelhaggett at lineone.net
Mon May 28 04:56:37 EDT 2001


Barbara Colt wrote (27 May)

>I expect I'm being quite thick again, but I can't figure out what purpose
is served by the first 'KAI' (that I have put between asterisks below).

John 17:25.   PATER DIKAIE, *KAI* hO KOSMOS SE OUK EGNW,
EGW DE SE EGNWN, KAI hOUTOI EGNWSAN hOTI
SU ME APESTEILAS.

MH: I think that this is an example of KAI being used for emphasis.
There is an English (well, American actually) parallel to this in:

Jane: "Daddy, Tom just called me a xxxxx."
Tom: "No I didn't!"
Jane: "You did too!"

Where the "too" corresponds to one of the more readily understandable uses
of KAI, as the equivalent of "also".


Of course you can't quite translate John 17:25 that way. But Jane might
equally well have said, "Yes you did!" so I would suggest that the sense is
brought out by something along the lines of:

"Righteous Father - yes, the world did not know you, but I, I knew you ..."

The strongly emphatic nature of the KAI is balanced by the strongly emphatic
EGW.

-----
Harold Holmyard wrote:

>In BAGD, under KAI, at I.6, there is mention of KAI to introduce contrasts
where there are two KAI's, yielding "although" . . ."yet." That is what the
context in John 17:25 suggests.

MH: I don't think this does fit, because I don't see this contrast as being
between the two KAIs but between the first KAI and the EGW DE.
I suppose you could translate:

"Righteous Father, although the world did not know you, (yet) I knew you
..."

But to my mind this doesn't quite convey the TONE of what Jesus is saying
here. That idea would more likely be expressed with a MEN ... DE
construction.

Michael Haggett
www.ntgreek.com






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