God so loved the world

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Apr 29 07:09:37 EDT 2002


At 6:40 AM -0400 4/29/02, richard smith wrote:
>hOUTWS YAR HGAPHSEN hO QEOS TON KOSMON, hWSTE TON hUION TON MONOGENH
>EDWKEN
>
>Just checking my understanding of the sense of Greek in Jn 3:16, which is
>somewhat different from my previous understanding.
>
>Until now I guess my assumption had been that "so loved" was an expression
>of the amount of love God has for the world.
>
>Now however it seems that the verse is better understood as "God loved the
>world in this way."
>
>The giving of the Son is not the measure of God's love, but its result and
>its fruitful expression. And a result that has for its purpose that each
>who believes might not perish but will have life forever.
>
>Please let me know if this reading is correct.

This issue was hashed out in discussions on this list in April of 2000 in a
thread of several days' duration. It was introduced by Joseph Weaks who had
argued against the traditional interpretation on his web site and was
surprised to find that Raymond Brown (Anchor Commentary on the gospel) held
the traditional view. The thread was entitled 'hOUTWS Jn3.16 "In this way"'
and ran from 4/1/00 to 4/5/00 and may be read in the archives, at

	http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/2000-04/36317.html

I endeavored to uphold the traditional view.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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