[B-Greek] John 6:27
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Mar 3 19:26:07 EST 2003
At 6:36 PM -0500 3/3/03, <bertdehaan at gosympatico.ca> wrote:
>Hi, B-Greekers;
>The last clause of John 6:27 reads; TOUTON GAR hO PATHR ESFRAGISEN hO
>QEOS. It is quite clear that hO PATHR and hO QEOS belong together. What is
>the reason that ESFRAGISEN is inserted here,(or hO PATHR pushed forward,
>or hO QEOS pushed back, whatever the case may be). Thank you.
A response to this really requires, I think, that we envision the whole
passage and grasp that the antecedent of TOUTON is hO hUIOS TOU ANQRWPOU:
ERGAZESQE MH THN BRWSIN THN APOLLUMENHN ALLA THN BRWSIN THN MENOUSAN EIS
ZWHN AIWNION, hHN hO hUIOS TOU ANQRWPOU hUMIN DWSEI; TOUTON GAR hO PATHR
ESFRAGISEN hO QEOS.
Here TOUTON is "the Son of Man" and it is Jesus, speaking directly of
himself and his own authoritative status. My own idiomatic version in
English of this would be: "For HE is the one whom the Father has set his
seal upon, that is to say, GOD has done it." I persist in this as yet
unshaken notion, Iver to the contrary notwithstanding, that there is
emphasis in the final position. One might argue that hO QEOS is appositive
to hO PATHR, but in my opinion a noun or adjective indicated as attributive
by the article serves very much the same function as an appositive, as TOUS
ANDRAS TOUS MEGALOUS: "the men, the big ones."
--
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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