[B-Greek] 1John 3:19-20

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Oct 16 10:23:38 EDT 2003


What has not been done yet in this thread is to cite concisely the text
about which questions are being raised:

1 John 3:19 [KAI] EN TOUTWi GNWSOMEQA hOTI EK THS ALHQEIAS ESMEN, KAI
EMPROSQEN AUTOU PEISOMEN THN KARDIAN hHMWN. 20 hOTI EAN KATAGINWSKHi hHMWN
hH KARDIA, hOTI MEIZWN ESTIN hO QEOS THS KARDIAS hHMWN KAI GINWSKEI PANTA.

At 6:13 PM -0400 10/15/03, Mike Marchywka wrote:
>I did find 1 John 3:19,20 at this link:
>
>http://www.concordant.info/pdf/1jo3.pdf

If I've understood your posts thus far, my impression is that you are not
really very far along yet in learning Biblical Gree--and the following
remarks are based upon that assumption, which may be wrong (if so, please
don't take it amiss). For my part I would not advise relying upon this
particular interlinear; as has been noted in last week's discussion of it,
it is very idiosyncratic and rigidly converts discrete elements of the
Greek words into supposedly comparable English elements without regard for
what is known about actual contemporary usage of the Greek words and
phrases. If you don't feel confident enough of your skills at reading
Greek, you might get one of the parsing guides--there are several such that
analyze the forms of every word in the GNT. My own recommendation, however,
would be to work at building up your skills in reading Greek, procure, if
you haven't already, a GNT text, preferably (I think) either NA27 or USB4,
and, as you are able, procure a good Greek lexicon; while BDAG is certainly
not perfect (I don't know of any reference work that is), it is for all
practical purposes an indispensable tool for any really serious student of
the GNT; useful too (but in addition to, rather than instead of BDAG) is
Louw & Nida, _Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic
Domains_. If you have already--or when you have--acquired a solid grounding
in Koine grammar, you need also a good reference grammar; list-members
generally seem to think highly of Wallace's GGBB--I have a few gripes about
it, but on the whole I think it is a very useful reference; there's also
the work co-authored by our co-chair Carlton Winbery, and there are others.
I'm not going to try to make any exhaustive list here. If you're becoming a
competent computer user, you probably would sooner or later want to get one
of the better Biblical studies programs (e.g. Bible-Works or LOGOS for
Windows users, the incomparable Accordance for Mac users, the cheaper but
less versatile On-Line Bible); most of these will parse the Greek words,
will show the Greek text and any preferred translation in parallel columns,
and also have on-line links to BDAG, GGBB and/or other reference works).

One of the concerns here is the proper understanding of KARDIA. I thought
that Iver offered a reasonably concise and judicious account of usage of
that word in Biblical texts; I think L&N's account is not inconsistent with
what Iver wrote and you may find it useful, as follows:
-----------------
26.3 KARDIA, AS f.: (a figurative extension of meaning of kardi÷a 'heart,'
not occurring in the NT in its literal sense) the causative source of a
person's psychological life in its various aspects, but with special
emphasis upon thoughts - 'heart, inner self, mind.'1  AGAPHSEIS KURION TON
QEON SOU EN hOLHi THi KARDIAi SOU 'you shall love the Lord your God with
your whole heart' Mt 22:37; TA KRUPTA THS KARDIAS AUTOU FANERA GINETAI 'the
secret thoughts of his heart will be brought into the open' 1Cor 14:25;
hEKASTOS KAQWS PROHRHTAI THi KARDIAi– 'each person (should give) what he
has decided in his heart' 2Cor 9:7; KATA DE THN SKLHROTHTA SOU KAI
AMETANOHTON KARDIAN QHSAURIZEIS SEAUTWi ORGHN EN hHMERAi ORGHS 'because of
your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath
against yourself for the day of wrath' Ro 2:5.
	It is often possible to render KARDIAa by a number of different
terms depending upon the immediate context, for example, 'mind,'
'intention,' 'purpose,' or 'desire.' In many languages it is quite
impossible to use a term meaning 'heart,' since such a term may not lend
itself to figurative extension in meaning. Often the equivalent of KARDIA
is 'liver,' while in a number of languages it is 'stomach' or 'bowels.'
--------------------

>Apparently,  KATAGINWSKW and GINWSKW occur 3 times. The one describing
>condemnation
>is KATAGINWSKW HMWN H KARDIA. How does the "of the heart" part modify the
>notion of knowledge in KATAGINWSKW?

The text of 1 John 3:20 says: EAN KATAGINWSKHi hHMWN hH KARDIA ...; that's
"if our heart judges us unfavorably ..." The genitive plural hHMWN could be
understood either as dependent upon KARDIA or as an object of KATAGINWSKHi,
since KATAGINWSKW regularly takes a genitive object (as do many verbs
compounded with KATA-), but it doesn't really matter because in the context
it's clear that the "heart" in question is "ours" and that it is "us" that
the heart judges unfavorably. For my part, I take this to mean, "If, deep
inside of us, we are aware that we are in the wrong ..."

That is, is this the same kind of
>knowledge
>attributed to God a few words later ( without KATA) that happens to be
>contained in the heart
>or is it somehow different because it is contained in the heart? Could this
>phrase imply
>that KARDIA knowledge is inherently KATA knowledge? The phrase does look
>conditional,
>" if this knowledge ever is condemning " ( but again, I don't claim to have
>any perspective
>here).

I think there probably is a deliberate word-play here with KATAGINWSKW and
GINWSKW. GINWSKW ranges over a considerable range of meanings, but most
essentially it means "discern," "recognize." It often bears the sense
"distinguish" that which one discerns as being what it is in contrast to
what it is not, and so can mean "judge" in the sense  of "reach a value
judgment about what one discerns." KATAGINWSKW expands upon that sense of
GINWSKW in that it indicates negative judgment/evaluation of the object of
the verb. In a judicial sense, one might say that GINWSKW means "reach a
verdict," while KATAGINWSKW means "reach a negative verdict," and in fact
that is the way KATAGINWSKW is commonly used in older Attic Greek in a
judicial or forensic context.

Now let's return to the text of the passage as a whole:

1 John 3:19 [KAI] EN TOUTWi GNWSOMEQA hOTI EK THS ALHQEIAS ESMEN, KAI
EMPROSQEN AUTOU PEISOMEN THN KARDIAN hHMWN. 20 hOTI EAN KATAGINWSKHi hHMWN
hH KARDIA, hOTI MEIZWN ESTIN hO QEOS THS KARDIAS hHMWN KAI GINWSKEI PANTA.

Without going too far afield, I think the context offers some help in
grasping what the author is saying: one central and recurring concern of
this letter is the inconsistency of "hating one's brother" or "having no
compassion for one's brother" (3;17) and claiming to love God. Then there's
the concern for ALHQEIA, which in this context might be "honesty" or
"authenticity" in one's relationship to God and one's "brother" (presumably
"fellow believer"). In my opinion, what the author is saying in this
passage (1 John 3;19-20) within its larger immediate context is that, if we
are honest in our relationship to God and to our fellow-believer, we should
not feel pangs of conscience. If we are being honest ("if we belong
to/derive from ALHQEIA") we will be able to convince our
heart/judgment/conscience when face to face with God, i.e. God who discerns
better, more accurately than we do, even if our heart judges us
unfavorably, discerns and judges correctly and helps us convince (PEISOMEN)
our own heart so that it does not judge us unfavorably any more. But it
must be understood that all this depends upon our honest relationship with
our fellow-believer; the author repeatedly insists that one cannot love God
and despise one's fellow-believer. That's my take on the thrust of this
passage and the way GINWSKW and KATAGINWSKW are being used.

>What alternatives would the author have had if he had wished to
>explicitly contrast a human  emotion to God's reason?

I don't think, for my part, that it's a matter of emotion and reason but
rather of one's one judgment of one's behavior and God's judgment of one's
behavior.
-- 

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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