John 3:21
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Aug 21 08:26:53 EDT 2002
I would like to thank Mike Sangrey for a thoughtful and thought-provoking
discussion of this usage of EN + dative of proper name or personal pronoun.
It has sent me scurrying back to ATR and prompted me to ask several times
as I have read and reread Mike's post: "Did Robertson really say that?"
I've found myself responding to my own question: "No and Yes indeed."
Through recent years I have become increasingly uncomfortable with my
traditional understanding of the Hellenistic and particularly the GNT usage
of EN + dative. Inasmuch as the historical Greek dative case forms serve
not only the functions of the original Indo-European dative but also those
of the original Indo-European instrumental-comitative and locative cases,
I'd always found it comfortable to think of classical Greek dative usages
in three functional categories correlated to English prepositional-phrase
formats: (1) "to/for whom" (true dative); (2) "in/on/at" (locative); and
(3) "with/by-means-of what/whom" (instrumental/comitative). What becomes
clear to a reader of NT Greek pretty quickly is that prepositional phrases
comprising EN + dative are NOT uniformly indicative of a locative function
but are quite frequently instrumental (e.g., AUTOS DE BAPTISEI hUMAS EN
PNEUMATI hAGIWi)
It is really worth reading carefully through BDAG's listing of usages of EN
+ dative and studying the examples which he offers in each of his
subcategories.
I cite only the chief categories and subcategories in his accounting, which
encompasses the better part of four pages. I think that his heading note is
very nicely expressed: "The earliest auditors/readers, not being
inconvenienced by grammatical and lexical debates, would readily absorb the
context and experience little difficulty." Indeed, where we encounter
difficulty is in converting these EN + dative phrases into intelligible
language in our target languages (e.g., "we use 'in Christ' all so freely,
but I wonder how well we understand the intent of the Pauline EN CRISTWi):
EN prep. w. dat. (Hom.+). ... The uses of this prep. are so many and
various, and oft. so easily confused, that a strictly systematic treatment
is impossible. It must suffice to list the main categories, which will help
establish the usage in individual cases. The earliest auditors/readers, not
being inconvenienced by grammatical and lexical debates, would readily
absorb the context and experience little difficulty.
1. marker of a position defined as being in a location, in, among
(the basic idea, Rob. 586f)
a. of the space or place within which someth. is found, in
b. on
c. within the range of, at, near
d. among, in
e. before, in the presence of, etc.
2. marker of a state or condition, in
a. of being clothed and metaphors assoc. with such condition in, with
b. of other states and conditions
3. marker of extension toward a goal that is understood to be
within an area or condition, into
4. marker of close association within a limit, in
a. fig., of pers., to indicate the state of being filled w. or
gripped by someth.: in someone=in one's innermost being
b. of the whole, w. which the parts are closely joined
c. esp. in Paul. or Joh. usage, to designate a close personal
relation in which the referent of the en-term is viewed as the controlling
influence: under the control of, under the influence of, in close
association with
5. marker introducing means or instrument, with, a construction
that begins w. Homer (many examples of instrumental en
a. it can serve to introduce persons or things that accompany
someone to secure an objective: 'along with'
a. pers., esp. of a military force, w. blending of associative (s.
4) and instrumental idea
b. impers.
b. it can serve to express means or instrumentality in terms of
location for a specific action
6. marker of agency
7. marker of circumstance or condition under which someth. takes place
8. marker denoting the object to which someth. happens or in which
someth. shows itself, or by which someth. is recognized, to, by, in
connection with
9. marker of cause or reason, because of, on account of
a. gener.
b. w. verbs that express feeling or emotion, to denote that toward
which the feeling is directed=
10marker of a period of time, in, while, when
a. indicating an occurrence or action within which, at a certain
point, someth. occurs=
b. point of time when someth. occurs=
c. to introduce an activity whose time is given when, while, during
11 marker denoting kind and manner, esp. functioning as an
auxiliary in periphrasis for adverbs
12 marker of specification or substance
At 11:13 AM -0400 8/20/02, Mike Sangrey wrote:
>On Mon, 2002-08-19 at 22:09, Mark Wilson wrote:
>>
>>
>> hO DE POIWN THN ALHQEIAN ERCETAI PROS TO FWS, hINA FANERWQHi AUTOU
>> TA ERGA hOTI EN QEWi ESTIN EIRGASMENA
>>
>> The idea seems to me to be that one comes to the light in order
>> to show forth that his/her deeds were done "in God." This light shines
>> upon the deeds so that those who care to look upon them can see that
>> they were done "in God."
>>
>> What in the world does this phrase "in God" mean?
><snip>
>
>For a little while now, I've thought that sometimes (maybe even
>frequently) EN + <some personal referent> has the sense of an
>intensified proper dative.
>
>I start with A.T. Robertson's statement of the dative being "the case of
>personal interest" and simply intensify it and arrive at "close,
>personal association and/or relationship."
>
>But how do I get there? Robertson cites (under EN in the "Big Brown
>Book") 1 Cor. 14:11 and hesitantly says "we have EN used merely as the
>dative". The text is:
> EAN OUN MH EIDW THN DUNAMIN THS FWNHS, ESOMAI TWi LALOUNTI BARBAROS
> KAI hO LALWN EN EMOI BARBAROS
>
>I take Paul to be saying (essentially) "if I'm deaf and mute, I will be
>a non-Greek to the one who can speak, and the one who can speak, as far
>as I'm concerned, will also be a non-Greek." So, I take EN EMOI to mean
>"in reference to what concerns me" and thus translate into English with
>"as far as I'm concerned." It's essentially a dative, but I think it
>emphasizes the association and relationship between the two people at
>that point; and, given the context, emphasizes the communication
>breakdown that occurs in such a situation. A simple dative would not
>have added this emphasis; EN + <personal referent> does. Well, IMO, it
>does.
>
>Secondly, Robertson mentions, in regards to the dative, "The dative is
>not a local case. There was originally no idea of place in it. It is
>thus a purely grammatical case." And "the dative has a distinctive
>personal touch not true of the others."
>
>Also, when I see a preposition I note the case of the object in the
>phrase, assess how that case fits into the sentence, and then allow the
>preposition to "have its way" with the case. Again, to cite Robertson,
>"`The preposition is, therefore, only an adverb specialized to define a
>case-usage' (citing Giles, Man., etc)" He cites Blass when he says,
>"the use of a preposition with nouns was `a practice which in the course
>of the history of the language became more and more adopted in
>opposition to the employment of the simple case.'" He goes on to
>mention the Emperor Augustus was noted for his excessive use of
>prepositions in his effort to speak more clearly." So, what we have
>then in the development of the language is prepositions coming on board
>to better define the core idea of the case. I didn't learn this very
>well when it was taught.
>
>Let me add a parenthesis here and hopefully balance this a little: As a
>person becomes more fluent, the <preposition> + <case> construct becomes
>an idiomatic unit; and that is what the grammars list. The point I'm
>making here is that the natural training of the mind toward fluency
>tends to not happen with the category approach to learning
>prepositions. Therefore the person (the mind, actually) doesn't benefit
>from the more foundational case idea first before it adds the
>prepositional (adverbial) ideas of the prepositions. Perhaps this
>feedback to those who teach Greek may be helpful. IMO, I think there
>needs to be some kind of layering of the prepositions onto semantics of
>the cases.
>
>Anyway, what I'm saying is:
> * The dative case is the case of personal interest, and
> * EN, when used with a personal object intensifies this concept,
> and
> * therefore, the elements of personal relationship are made more
> salient.
>
>Here's how I see this playing out in John 3:21:
>
>Jesus' argument in John 3:19ff proceeds as follows: Light has come into
>the world, but people are attracted to the shadows because what they do
>are evil things. They don't want to be exposed, so they hate the
>light. But, whoever lives their lives according to the truth [or
>perhaps, with integrity] comes into the light so that it becomes clear
>that what they have done has been done in a relationship with God.
>
>The implication, as I see it, is that the exposure validates the
>relationship with God. This mirrors, or reflects John's recording of
>Nicodemus' statement at the beginning of this section--cf 3:2 EAN MH Hi
>hO QEOS MET' AUTOU, so there's a little bit of inclusio going on here,
>too.
>
>I know a number of people, when I've thanked them for their ministry,
>have an almost knee-jerk reaction and say, "May God have the glory."
>It's the same sort of thing here. The exposure of who they are
>validates their relationship with God and they in turn recognize that
>the value of their ministry ultimately is determined by Him alone.
>
>--
>Mike Sangrey
>msangrey at BlueFeltHat.org
>Landisburg, Pa.
> "The first one last wins."
> "A net of highly cohesive details reveals the truth."
>
>
>---
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--
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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