[B-Greek] John 8:58 and Gen 17:1 (LXX)
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Feb 17 15:50:00 EST 2005
At 1:52 PM -0500 2/17/05, Mike Sangrey wrote:
>On Thu, 2005-02-17 at 06:58 -0500, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>> At 8:46 PM -0800 2/16/05, Doug Hoxworth wrote:
>> <snip>
>> > ... I found very intriguing
>> >about John 8:58 and Gen 17:1 in the LXX.
>> >
>> >People were bringing up Exod 3:14 and some texts in
>> >Isaiah (I think this was George Somsel) as parallels.
>> >Out of curiosity, I thought I'd do a search to find
>> >EGW EIMI in the LXX and Genesis 17:1 came up. What I
>> >found was that there were a number of similarities
>> >that seem to suggest that this was what Christ was
>> >alluding to. Here are the texts:
>> >
>> >Gen 17:1 EGENETO DE ABRAM ETWN ENENHKONTA ENNEA, KAI
>> >WFQH KURIOS TWi ABRAM KAI EIPEN AUTWi EGW EIMI hO QEOS
>> >SOU, EUARESTEI ENANTION EMOU KAI GINOU AMEMPTOS
>> >
>> >John 8:56 ABRAAM hO PATHR hUMWN HGALLIASATO hINA IDHi
>> >THN hHMERAN THN EMHN, KAI EIDEN KAI ECARH 57 EIPON OUN
>> >hOI IOUDAIOI PROS AUTON PENTHKONTA ETH OUPW ECEIS KAI
>> >ABRAAM hEWRAKAS; 58 EIPEN AUTOIS IHSOUS AMHN AMHN LEGW
>> >hUMIN, PRIN ABRAAM GENESQAI EGW EIMI
>> >
>
><snip>
>
>> (5) GINOMAI is an ancient and versatile verb in Greek, occurring both as a
>> copula with a predicate phrase and as indicator of an event of generation
>> or coming into being. In Gen 17:1 EGENETO is a copula, functioning as an
>> equivalent of an aorist of EIMI which has no aorist: "Abraham was
>> ninety-nine years old ..."; in John 8:56 the infinitive GENESQAI indicates
>> an event of birth; the usage of this work-horse verb in the two texts is
>> very different.
>
>Could PRIN ABRAAM GENESQAI be accurately rendered: "Before he became
>Abraham"? Which, of course, is exactly what is going on in Gen. 17. In
>a very real sense, Abram is going away, and Abraham is being birthed.
Wouldn't that have to be PRIN ABRAAM GENESQAI TON ABRAM? In any case, I
think that if ABRAAM is to be understood as a predicate noun, there needs
to be some clear indication of the SUBJECT of GENESQAI. The question to
which Jesus responds regards the contemporaneity of Jesus and Abraham; it
seems to me that's the focus of what Jesus says in 8:58: his identity
antedates Abraham's birth. Our passage in John 8 is not about the
name-change from Abram to Abraham but about the identity of Jesus.
--
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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