John 20:31 was Re: [B-Greek] Phil 2:11

Oun Kwon KwonO at upstate.edu
Sat Feb 21 18:03:36 EST 2004


I have been unable to catch the e-mails (about 1800 filed up in Greek and Bible Translation discussion groups).  Please allow me bleately to add my limited observation to the discussion of John 20:31 around October of 2003.In the text under our discussion, 'the Messiah' is the subject; (non-arthrous) 'Jesus' is the predicate.  There may be little semantic difference from its reverse, 'The Messiah is Yashua'.  However, subtle difference in emphasis and nuance may be there.   The text may be read in different ways, depending on the emphasis put on (or questions invoked), implicitly by the Evangelist. ·'It is Jesus who is the Messiah, the Son of God.' as the response to 'Who is the real Messiah, the real Son of God?' Not Caesar but Yashua is the Son of God, etc.  · 'Jesus is the one who is/comes-as the Messiah -- rather than being someone else, such as a mere prophet-healer-miracle-worker' as the response to 'Who is Jesus?' ·cf.  'Yashua is who the Messiah is.'  (nature or ssence of Jesus' role). (cf. for similarity in Jn 1:1c 'The Word was what God was' by NEB reading.)  cf.  Peter's confession in Synoptic (Mt:  16:16 etc.)  'You are the Messiah, the Son of Living God.' Here 'you' is emphatic; 'it is you who are the Messiah, the Son of Living God', not Caesar.  If the emphasis is put on 'the Messiah', the connotation would be, 'now you are no longer itinerant preacher, healer, miracle worker, but the Messiah we have been long waiting.'An example, if I may reconstruct the scene to fit for our argument, in Prince and Pauper at the finale scene: (with the original prince named John and the original pauper Paul).  At the scene of enthronement, now John, who has suffered as an inadvertent pauper is just proven to be the real prince.  ·  Here, 'John is the King' may be taken as 'John is the King!' It means:  'It is John who is the one to be the King' as the answer to 'Who, which one, is to be the King?' Not Paul.·  Or it may be taken as 'John is now the King!'   It means  'John is the one who is to be the King' as the answer to 'Who, which one, is to be the King?'  as the answer to  'What now is John?' i.e. He is no longer a pauper.  Cf. 'John is who the King is'((Note:   Personally,  I have been very impressed by the use of  emphatic in Greek sentences.  Some English translations are guilty of not bringing out this aspect nicely.   .  If  'Jesus' is taken as emphatic, in plain English 'Jesus is the Messiah', this would not be apprent unless a typographic device is used such as the bold as 'Jesus is the Messiah'.  In my native Korean language, we do not use 'I' or 'you' in conversational speech, since it is understood between the speaker and the hearer; they are only used when it is emphatic.  Similar to Greek, though in Greek the subject is inherent in the verb forms. Any noun carries a special ending for its grammatical role, not by word order. To be a subject, there are two forms of ending '-ee'  (or '*ga' if the word ends with verb) (when emphatic) and '-un' (or '-nun' if the word ends with verb).  This latter form '-un' is omitted in speech for 'I' and 'you'.  For the Peter's confession, 'you' should have the ending '-ga' to indicate the emphatic.  Unfortunately some of modern Korean translations failed to bring out this subtle difference.))
 
 
Oun J Kwon, M.D.
SUNY Uptate Med University
Syracuse, NY

 
Oun J Kwon, M.D.
SUNY Uptate Med University
Syracuse, NY





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