John 6: 37

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Aug 12 20:49:33 EDT 2002


At 6:04 PM -0500 8/12/02, jldrick at juno.com wrote:
>Folks,
>
>	John 6: 36-37, "ALL EIPON hUMIN hOTI KAI
>EWRAKATE ME KAI OU PISTEUETE.  PAN hO DIDWSIN
>MOI hO PATHR PROS EME HXEI, KAI TON ERCOMENON
>PROS ME OU MH EKBALW EXW."
>
>	Please forgive the poor transliteration.  I need to
>work with it more.
>
>	Am I correct that the "PAN" and "TON" are neuter
>plurals and not masculine plurals?

No. In fact, PAN is neuter singular as is the relative pronoun hO, lit.
"everything which the father gives to me will come to me." TON construes
with ERCOMENON and is masculine singular, object of EKBALW: lit., "the one
coming (to me)."

>	Some commentators suggest that these should
>be understood as masculine plurals, referring to "all
>individuals" and not "all things."  Is such an interpretation
>good, Greek grammar?
>
>	Would a neuter exclude people or would it
>include people along with everything else?

I think that what the commentators are saying is that "everything which the
father gives me" and "the one coming" refer to people and therefore should
be translated in plural terms into the target language. Thus, "everything
that the Father gives me" = "all those whom the Father gives me" and "the
one coming" = "those who come." I hope that's clear.
-- 

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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