ANWQEN in John 3:3 ff

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Thu Dec 26 14:47:36 EST 2002


>
> 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?

My recommendation is to look for how John used the same word in other
contexts. It is also helpful to look at how the word is used in other
writings in the NT which clearly go back to a Hebrew source or show a Hebrew
thought pattern, such as James.


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