[B-Greek] John 3:36

eJesusKing ejkk at bluemarble.net
Sat Sep 20 14:17:37 EDT 2003


Thank you for your time and thoughts; I am curious, when you say literary
effect, are you presupposing that John thought that his readers would
understand which meaning he was trying to communicate; and if so, how? (I
kindly ask this with all due respect, for as you know  the
belief/-faith-obedience issue ran  deep and wide in the early Christian
Church (esp. first-century AD), even as it seems to still today in some
settings; i.e., the degree of validity of the Law in a Christian's life, or,
the Grace/Law issue,  the personal resolution of which oftentimes is
reflected in choice of lifestyle. My question however is linguistic, not
theological, and is centered on John's curious switch in mid-thought to
another word (albeit a closely related one, which frustrates the matter for
me)-- and ferreting out his intended meaning of that word). In another
communiqué I learned that John's tendency with respect to the
PISTEUW--APEIQEW combination was such that he tended towards OU PISTEUW when
negating PISTEUW, and his use of APEIQEW in this regard was rather singular,
and that APEIQEW tended to focus the scope of possibilities towards
compliance, obedience, subjection, and so forth, whereas PISTEUW was broader
but in that same vein. As a learner, I would be interested in your meaning
of literary effect in this case as well. Thanks so much.
kind regards, Mike Dewus
dewus at bluemarble.net
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Clwinbery at aol.com>
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2003 1:07 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] John 3:36


>
> In a message dated 9/19/03 6:12:33 PM, dewus at bluemarble.net writes:
>
> >BlankhO PISTEUWN EIS TON UION EXEI ZWHN AIWNION; hO DE APEIQWN TW UIW OUK
> >OYETAI ZWHN, ALL H ORGH TOU QEOU MENEI EP AUTON.
> >
> >Hi, I was wondering if I could get someone's opinion as to (1) why the
> >author used APEIQWN in the second part of the verse and not simply ou
with
> >the word PISTEUWN-- the word they used earlier in the verse; in other
words,
> >is the author deliberately trying to do more than negate PISTEUWN and
inject
> >a different thought with the subsequent use of APEIQWN; I realize the
words
> >are closely related to one another (i.e., PISTEUW is derived from PISTIS
> >which is derived from PEIQW [I hope that derivation chain is correct]).
> >I've checked several translations for the verse itself  and there is some
> >disagreement (hence my frustration) based on the interpretation of
APEIQWN,
> >which some  render as not believing; some as not obeying in these various
> >translations. The range of definitions I've found as possibilities for
> >the
> >word are: not-persuading, complying, believing, obeying). (2) Is it
> >reasonable to assume that the dative TW UIW might argue for the believing
> >rather than obeying rendition, as it seems to makes more sense in
context?
> >Thanks in advance.
> >kind regards, Mike Dewus
> >dewus at bluemarble.net
> >
> The dative may be used with either PISTEUW or APEIQEW so I think that the
> variety of wording here is for literary effect with no real difference in
meaning.
>
> Carlton Winbery
> Louisiana College
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek




More information about the B-Greek mailing list