[B-Greek] Accusative in John 2:11
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Aug 6 12:27:38 EDT 2003
At 9:34 AM -0500 8/6/03, Rob Matlack wrote:
>TAUTHN EPOIHSE THN ARCHN TWN SHMEIWN hO IHSOUS EN KANA THS GALILAIAS
>I have two questions concerning this first clause of 2:11. First, the NET
>Bible note
>reads: "Jesus did this as the first of his miraculous signs. The sentence
>in Greek
>involves an object-complement construction. The force can be either 'Jesus
>did this
>as,' or possibly 'Jesus made this to be,' The latter translation accents
>not only
>Jesus' power but his sovereignty too. Cf. also 4:54." I can see how this
>could be
>construed as and object-compliment construction, but could it not also be
>a simple
>appositive, so the NIV and ESV.
>
>Second, some manuscripts omit the THN before ARCHN. Is there any significant
>difference in meaning? Does the presence of the article lend itself more
>to the simple
>accusative understanding?
I think you are raising more a question of the grammar of English
translation than of understanding the Greek text: TAUTHN THN ARCHN is a
unit and functions as the object of EPOIHSE--if that weren't so the TAUTHN
wouldn't be feminine. The reading TAUTHN ARCHN without the article is
intelligible but violates standard Greek grammar which calls for a
demonstrative such as hOUTOS always to be in a predicative position, which
in turn means that the article must appear with the noun. The Greek text
says, "performed this beginning of (his) miracles" although you could as
well translate TAUTHN THN ARCHN as "this first one."
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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