[B-Greek] eidhte in 1 John 5:13
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Jan 16 11:36:17 EST 2004
At 4:28 PM +0200 1/16/04, Retief M <13365134 at sun.ac.za> wrote:
>Dear B-Greek Members:
>
>My question pertains to the meaning of eidhte (normally translated as
>"know" in English)
>in 1 John 5:13. Does the word "eidhte" denote absolute (not subject to
>error) certainty/
>knowledge?
I think you may be asking for a precise delineation of degrees of what
Plato called epistemological SAFHNEIA in his "Figure of the Divided Line"
(Republic VI) than can readily be given. OIDA originates as the perfect
tense of the root meaning SEE (with eyes), EIDON and means (originally)
"have a full mental image" or "have a lasting impression on the basis of
empirical experience." I don't think that the author of First John intends
either to indicate "error-free" knowledge as such, nor do I think that he
would necessarily reject that notion if he were asked; I think that in this
text he means something like "have a fully satisfying confidence that you
have ...". You won't really find that in the six categories of meaning
listed for OIDA in BDAG, but the first sense given there comes pretty
close: have grounds of confidence about a fact.
>I am new to the list; I would appreciate any insights on this matter.
As a new list member you ought to read through the B-Greek FAQ at:
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/faq.txt
and you'll find the scheme of transliteration that we generally use on the
list there also.
>Thank you.
>Marno
>Cape Town, South Africa
Hereafter would you please use a full-name signature as B-Greek protocol
calls for? Thanks.
--
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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