[B-Greek] Jn. 8:40 (further)

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Nov 24 08:57:31 EST 2004


At 6:18 PM -0600 11/23/04, Steven Lo Vullo wrote:
>On Nov 23, 2004, at 1:03 PM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
>> NUN DE ZHTEITE ME APOKTEINAI ANQRWPON hOS THN ALHQEIAN hUMIN LELALHKA
>> hHN
>> HKOUSA PARA TOU QEOU . . .
>>
>> What actually are you saying, George? that ANQRWPON is third singular
>> and
>> is the real antecedent of hOS? I'd understand ANQRWPON as appositional
>> to
>> ME and I'd still understand ME as the antecedent of hOS and the factor
>> accounting for the first-person verb LALHKA (as well as HKOUSA). Was it
>> some other "person" (ANQRWPOS) hOS LELALHKEN and HKOUSEN? No, I was the
>> ANQRWPOS, and it was I who LELALHKA and HKOUSA.
>
>Carl, I agree with you for the most part. But I think ANQRWPON, the
>appositive, is indeed the antecedent of the relative and completes the
>thought ("a man who has told you the truth"). Otherwise ANQRWPON is
>left hanging, making no sense on its own.

I appreciate your note, Steven, and I acknowledge that you are absolutely
right to insist that ANQRWPON is the true antecedent of hOS. I note
further, however, that your English version ("a man who has told you the
truth") does depart from a literal sense of the Greek ("a man who have told
you the truth") in that you use the third-person singular where the Greek
has the first-person singular.

And this has brought me to further reflection on the question originally
posed by Ron Minton. We appear to have a "gut feeling" that--in English, at
least--the relative clause should have a third-person verb, or at least
that a third-person verb is more natural in this context than the
first-person verb that we find in the relative clause in Jn 8:40. I've been
thinking this through and looking at some more tentative parallel
constructions in the GNT. I've come to a couple conclusions:

(1) I still don't think that there's anything irregular about the
construction of hOS with a first-person verb in the text in question, and I
still don't think that the construction requires any name (whether
"attraction" or "anacoluthon"; it may come closest to "constructio ad
sensum" but that's not quite the same thing either.

(2) It seems to me that our sequence ... ME APOKTENAI ANQRWPON hOS ...
LELALHKA ... with its appositive ANQRWPON to the accusative personal
pronoun ME is akin to constructions using the indefinite personal pronoun
hOSTIS.

While my first inclination was to say that ANQRWPON hOS LELALHKA is
equivalent to ANQRWPON TON LELALHKOTA ..., that's really a bit different,
and it's different too from the construction of the Lord's prayer opening
that I cited yesterday, (Mt 6:9): PATER hHMWN hO EN TOIS OURANOIS (WN). In
these constructions we have a DEFINITE substantive nominal phrase, "the one
who are/art in Heaven." But I'm not really so sure that's the case. Might
it not be that ME APOKTEINAI ANQRWPON hOS ... LELALHKA is equivalent to ME
APOKTEINAI hOSTIS ... LELALHKA ..., where hOSTIS = "such a one as ..."?

So also the texts that Iver cited yesterday,

>Rom 2:23: hOS EN NOMWi KAUCASAI - you who boast in the law
>
>Confer also several substantive participles in 2:21-2, e.g.:
>hO LEGWN MH MOICEUEIN, MOICEUEIS - you who say that one should not commit
>adultery, you commit adultery.
>
>Acts 22:4: hOS TAUTHN THN hODON EDIWXA - I who persecuted this way

But in Jn 8:40 it's not "the man who..." or "the one who ..." but "A man
who ..." And there doesn't seem to be any particular emphasis in ANQRWPON
as "human being"; rather ANQRWPOS here seems to mean simply "person"--so
that the clause is "a person who have told you the truth" or "a
truth-teller." Usually a substantive participle has the article (e.g. hO
LEGWN = "the one who says"), but we probably all remember our puzzlement
when first reading Mk 1:3par "FWNH BOWNTOS EN THi ERHMWi where BOWNTOS is
"someone shouting."

But there are some other parallels with hOS or hOSTIS and a first- or
second-person verb:

Acts 10:41 ... hHMIN, hOITINES SUNEFAGOMEN KAI SUNEPIOMEN AUTWi META TO
ANASTHSAI AUTON EK NEKRWN

Rom 6:2 hOITINES APEQANOMEN THi hAMARTIAi, PWS ETI ZHSOMEN EN AUTHi? (here
the relative clause precedes the clause implicitly containing its
antecedent)

1 Cor 15:9 EGW GAR EIMI hO ELACISTOS TWN APOSTOLWN hOS OUK EIMI hIKANOS
KALEISQAI APOSTOLOS (would we want to say "one who IS not worthy ..."?)

Acts 7:52-53 ... PERI THS ELEUSEWS TOU DIKAIOU hOU NUN hUMEIS PRODOTAI KAI
FONEIS EGENESQE, hOITINES ELABETE TON NOMON EIS DIATAGAS AGGELWN KAI OUK
EFULAXATE (here the clause in question is hOITINES ELABETE ...OUK EFULAXATE)

Gal 5:4 KATHRGHQHTE APO CRISTOU, hOITINES EN NOMWi DIKAIOUSQE ...

Jas 4:13-14 AGE NUN hOI LEGONTES ... hOITINES OUK EPISTASQE TO THS AURION
POIA hH ZWH hUMWN

Some of the above constructions should probably be called "relative
conditional sentences" since they involve a protasis of the hOS or hOSTIS
sort with the antecedent indicated in the apodosis.
-- 

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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