[B-Greek] John 3:36

Clwinbery at aol.com Clwinbery at aol.com
Sat Sep 20 19:01:14 EDT 2003


In a message dated 9/20/03 2:14:01 PM, ejkk at bluemarble.net writes:

>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.

Basically I do not see John as saying two different things but using a 
variety of words to say the one thing. This tendency is found throughout the gospel 
and letters. (eg. AGAPAW/PHILEW, GINWSKW/OIDA, ETC.

Carlton Winbery
Louisiana College



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