ANWQEN in John 3:3 ff

Paul S Dixon dixonps at juno.com
Thu Dec 26 12:03:34 EST 2002



On Thu, 26 Dec 2002 10:48:49 -0600 "Carl W. Conrad"
<cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu> writes:
> At 11:25 AM -0500 12/26/02, <bertdehaan at gosympatico.ca> wrote:
> >Hi everyone.
> >I was reading in the Gospel according to John and came to the 
> passage
> >where Jesus said to Nicodemus:...unless one is born again... I was
> >surprised that the word translated as again was not PALIN but 
> ANWQEN. When
> >I looked up ANWQEN I found that it is a cognate of ANA and its 
> first
> >translation was suggested to be; from above.
> >Would Nicodemus have had a clue that Jesus was speaking about 
> something
> >other than a physical birth by Jesus' choice of ANWQEN over PALIN?
> 
> This has been discussed many times on the list; you might search 
> the
> archives using the word ANWQEN as your trigger. One significant 
> little
> thread on it was in June of 1998. One might prefer to understand 
> ANWQEN
> either exclusively as "again" or exclusively as "from above," but 
> there are
> many who think that this is one point at which the evangelist 
> deliberately
> chose a word that could bear more than one sense.

Yes, a good example of a double-entendre.  Compare also KEFALHS in 1 Cor
11:5, probably referring to both her own physical head (shaming herself)
and to her figurative head, shaming also her husband.

But, I did notice Gal 4:9 and the juxtaposition of PALIN ANWQEN. 
Thoughts?

Paul Dixon, Pastor
First Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Camden, AL

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