Mat 14:32

Clwinbery at aol.com Clwinbery at aol.com
Sat Aug 10 13:30:10 EDT 2002



In a message dated 8/9/02 11:35:12 PM, cc.constantine at worldnet.att.net writes:

>on 8/9/02 5:26 PM, B. D. Colt wrote:
>
>> In Matthew 14:31, I note EIS TI EDISTASAS; which NET at least (and
>> probably more--I didn't check) translates as "Why did you doubt?"
>> What I am puzzled about is, what is the function of EIS here?
>> 
>> Barbara D. Colt 
>> St John the Evangelist, San Francisco
>
>Barbara,
>
>EIS is used here to mark a GOAL. TI is accusative. So we could unpack the
>sense of EIS TI as "for what purpose" or "what was your reason for" the
>question being about the GOAL or intention of doubting.
>
>Here are some other examples
>
>MATT. 26:8 IDONTES DE hOI MAQHTAI HGANAKTHSAN LEGONTES: EIS TI hH APWLEIA
>hAUTH; 
>
>MARK 14:4 HSAN DE TINES AGANAKTOUNTES PROS hEAUTOUS: EIS TI hH APWLEIA
>hAUTH
>TOU MUROU GEGONEN; 
>MARK 15:34 KAI THi ENATHi hWRAi EBOHSEN hO IHSOUS FWNHi MEGALHi: ELWI ELWI
>LEMA SABACQANI; hO ESTIN MEQERMHNEUOMENON: hO QEOS MOU hO QEOS MOU, EIS
>TI
>EGKATELIPES ME; 
>
>Clay

I agree with Clay here and would add only that this is a rather common 
expression in Helenistic Greek that means something like our "Why."

Carlton Winbery
Louisiana College



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