[B-Greek] EIS TA IDIA - John 1:11
Iver
iver_larsen at sil.org
Fri Aug 8 14:27:27 EDT 2003
>
> Robertson and Vincent both say "EIS TA IDIA"
> means "unto his own things".
<snip>
> What is signified by "His own" twice repeated in this text? It
> reads in the original,
> "He came EIS TA IDIA and HOI IDIOI received Him not." The facts
> in the case
> must supply the words understood. Jesus came to His own kingdom,
> or realm,
> but His own people, the Jews, who are the "children of the kingdom,"
> did not receive Him, but rejected, and crucified Him.
> The reading is, then, "He came EIS TA IDIA BASILEIA into His own realm,
> and HOI IDIOI LAOI His own people did not receive Him
>
> ******************************************************************
>
> This seems reasonable to me and fits in with the context.
>
Others have already clarified that assuming BASILEIA here is pretty much out
of the question (as is LAOI later, that must be a back translation from
English). Realm is closer than kingdom. In the context of John 1:3 (PANTA
DI' AUTOU EGENETO) I don't see any problem with taking TA IDIA to refer to
"things", i.e. the world and its contents as what he himself had created and
therefore in a sense what belonged to him. His own people is understood more
narrowly as those who were Jews like he himself was (John is writing to
Hellenistic people).
Normally, when we supply a word to an adjective used substantively (i.e.
without a head noun), it has to be either "thing(s) or
"person/man/woman/people" or a very common word like day, land, way, or a
word that can be supplied from the preceding context, occasionally the
following context.
Iver Larsen
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