[B-Greek] IOUDAIOS and metonymy

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Sat Jan 31 10:27:03 EST 2004


Dear Dmitriy,

>From your comments I can understand some of your presuppositions that are
different from mine. See below.

> > Jhn 7:1 After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for He did
> > not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews* sought to kill Him.
> > NKJV Copyright 1982 Thomas Nelson
> >
> > Jhn 11:7 Then after this He said to the disciples, "Let us go to
> > Judea again."
> > Jhn 11:8 The disciples said to Him, "Rabbi, lately the Jews
> > sought to stone You, and are You going there again?"
> > NKJV Copyright 1982 Thomas Nelson
> >
> > Here "the Jews" also can mean Judeans, because the Galileans who
> > were around Him at that time were also Jews, but they were not a
> > threat for Him.
> >
> > In these examples the word should definitely mean Judeans from the
> > context. And it is very probable that in many other passages with
> > not so clear context it means the same. After all, John was a Jew
> > himself, and it was he who wrote down Jesus' words that
> > "salvation comes from the Jews". Plus, in John's gospel he shows
> > Jesus' enemies mostly, if not only, in Judea, and he as Galilean
> > himself dislikes proud "spiritual" Judeans. So IOUDAIOI in his
> > Gospel seem to be in contrast not only to so called Christians
> > (who were also Jews) but also to Galileans.
>
> "I think these are questionable and hurried conclusions based on limited
> data."

> What is questionable? Do you agree that in my example the word
> means Judeans and nothing else? In first one Jesus avoids JUDEA
> because IOUDAIOI sought to kill Him. In the second He is warned
> not to go to JUDEA because IOUDAIOI just wanted to kill Him.

The most questionable part was this:
"In these examples the word should definitely mean Judeans from the
context. And it is very probable that in many other passages with
not so clear context it means the same."

First, it is an incorrect conclusion from a limited context that the word
IOUDAIOI must mean Judeans, just because it comes after the word Judea.
Second, your statement that "it is probable.." suggests to me that you have
not adequately researched the issue by actually looking at all the date, but
are guessing and make questionable conclusions based on two instances.

Your comment that "he [Jesus] as Galilean himself dislikes proud "spiritual"
Judeans" is out of character with the NT. To characterize ALL Judeans as
proud is far from anything Jesus would have said or thought. Jesus accuses
the proud Pharisees, and in John's gospel there is a very close connection
between hOI IOUDAIOI and the Pharisees.

And no, I don't agree that IOUDAIOI in these two verses means Judeans, nor
does any translation, or any commentary that I have been able to locate. It
is not the Judean population in general that sought to kill Jesus, only the
Jewish leaders, particularly the Pharisees and the high priestly family.
Many of these lived in Jerusalem and its environs, but that is not the
point, although it obviously meant that it was dangerous for Jesus to show
himself in Jerusalem at this point in time.
>
> "It is commonly recognized that John very often uses the term
> IOUDAIOI in a
> restricted sense referring to the Jewish leaders who were opposed to Jesus
> and did not believe in him."

> Why would John call leaders Jews? Don't you think it is rather
> strange? Were not Galileans Jews? Were not apostles Jews? Was not
> John a Jew?

The strangeness is caused by a lack of familiarity with what is called
metonymy where a word is used for the sake of brevity to stand for another,
related concept. In my years of studying the Greek NT and doing bible
translation work, I have found that quite often major misunderstandings of
exegetes go back to a failure to understand and appreciate when a metonymy
is used in Greek at a place where it is not commonly used in English. These
misunderstandings are mainly based on and propagated by misleading literal
translations that fail to communicate the fact that the word is used as a
metonymy in the Greek, but that same metonymy is not understood in English.
Modern translations are slowly correcting such misunderstandings by
unpacking the metonymies into normal English.

For instance, when Matt 3:5 is given in literal translations as "Jerusalem
went out to him" it is unpacked in modern translations to "People form
Jerusalem went out to him." This is an uncontroversial use of metonymy,
where "Jerusalem" stands for "a great number of people from Jerusalem".
There are many more uncontroversial metonymies in the bible. A controversial
(and often misunderstood) metonymy is found in 1 Cor 11:10 which literally
says "a woman ought to have authority on her head". The word "authority" is
a metonymy for "veil as a symbol of (being under) authority." (cf. RSV and
NET) Other controversial and often misunderstood metonymies are "blood" for
" (violent) death", "water" for "the water that precedes and announces the
imminent birth of a child" in John 3:5 and 1 John 5:6, and TEKNOGONIA for
"motherhood" in 1 Tim 2:15.
And it appears that it is now controversial also that the word "Jews" in
John is normally used as a metonymy for those who are the "official,
religious leaders of the Jews". Metonymies involving leadership are common
in the bible.

So, in John 7:1 and 11:8 the word IOUDAIOI does not mean "Judeans" nor does
it mean "Jews" as one might expect from the literal version you quote. It
means what the NET and NLT say it means: "Jewish authorities".

> Before I noticed the examples above where IOUDAIOI are identified
> with Judea and not with Judaism, I could not understand how John
> being a Jew can be so anti-Jewish.

IOUDAIOI is identified neither with Judea nor Judaism.
A literal and misleading translation into English has apparently caused you
and others to think that John is anti-Jewish. Of course, John is not
anti-Jewish - nor anti-Judean as some want us to believe now. He is just
explaining the fact that the Jewish authorities were antagonistic towards
Jesus, because they did not believe in him as the Messiah. They felt they
were protecting their faith by opposing what they considered to be a false
Messiah, an ungodly blasphemer. In John's gospel you will find that many
ordinary Jews, be they Galileans or Judeans or Pereans or whatever, DID
believe in Jesus, but the religious leaders found it much harder to believe
for various reasons.

> Again, I am not saying that the word always means Judeans. I am
> speaking particularly about the Gospel of John, and particularly
> about those anti-Judean sayings.

Is being anti-Judean any better than anti-Jewish? Both sound like racist
tendencies to me, and both are misunderstandings of John's terminology as
commonly mistranslated in literal English versions.

Iver Larsen




More information about the B-Greek mailing list