Adversative use of KAI in 1 John 2:1?
Iver Larsen
iver_larsen at sil.org
Thu Jun 13 16:13:29 EDT 2002
>
> I am studying 1 John, and am a little puzzled by John's statement
> in 1 John
> 2:1, especially his use of KAI:
>
> TAUTA GRAFW HUMIN HINA MH HAMARTHTE KAI EAN TIS HAMARTHI
>
> The use of KAI here seems to be adversative ("but") rather than
> conjunctive
> ("and") since John is clearly not writing to get them to sin. In
> my reading
> KAI usually seems to have the idea of "and", "even" or "namely,"
> but I can't
> remember seeing this nuance before. I could not find a discussion of this
> use in a grammar or commentary. Isn't this unusual for KAI? Are there
> other places where KAI has this idea? Is there a grammatical reason for
> using KAI here rather than DE or ALLA?
> Any help would be greatly appreciated!
> Bret A. Hicks
> Pastor
> Bay Ridge Christian Church
> Annapolis, Md
I would prefer to call this use of KAI the Semitic KAI rather than
"adversative KAI". It is common in both John's and Mark's writings, but also
found elsewhere. 1 John is written in Greek, but the rhetorical structure of
the letter and part of the sentence structure is Semitic. KAI has the basic
sense of "in addition to". One thought is added to another thought. The two
thoughts may well be adversative, but that is not part of the meaning of KAI
and it is not signalled by KAI. In an English translation, it is often
necessary to use "but", but... that word does not so much translate the
Greek word KAI as it translates the adversative idea contained in the
juxtaposition of two thoughts in Hebrew fashion where the reader is often
left to figure out for himself what the relationship is.
Iver Larsen
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