[B-Greek] EXHLQEN John 19.5

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Sep 17 17:14:20 EDT 2004


At 1:53 PM -0700 9/17/04, Eddie Mishoe wrote:
>John 19:4 contains
>
>KAI EXHLQEN PALIN EXW hO PILATOS KAI LEGEI AUTOIS, IDE
>AGW hUMIN AUTON EXW..
>
>Here, Pilate indicates that he will bring out Jesus.
>But the next verse begins..
>
>5. EXHLQEN OUN hO IHSOUS EXW...
>
>Why the Active EXHLQEN here? How would a passive sense
>had been written (he was lead out)?

The verb is intransitive and does not at all mean that Jesus came out of
his own accord. In fact EXHLQEN could very well be qualified by something
like hUPO TWN FULAKWN to means something like "he came out at the guards'
insistence." You could as easily have a passive form HCQH here, as in Acts
25:23 ... KELEUSANTOS TOU FHSTOU HCQH hO PAULOS. One thing that ought to be
realized about the Greek active voice is that it is the default voice-form,
the one generally used unless the speaker/writer intends to emphasize
self-affectedness by using a middle-passive form.
-- 

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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