[B-Greek] John 8:58 and Gen 17:1 (LXX)

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Feb 18 16:46:56 EST 2005


At 11:11 AM -0800 2/18/05, Doug Hoxworth wrote:
>after further reflection, i have some additional
>thoughts that i would appreciate your comment on.
>
>><Carl>
>>Quite frankly, I think that the supposed similarities
>are really superficial and wanting in significance.
>
><doug>
>i agree that it is not "air-tight" by any means. what
>has been wanting, in my mind, in the interpretation of
>john 8:56ff is that it seems that rarely is the issue
>of how the dialogue relates to abraham seeing Christ's
>day (along with the discussion about abraham that they
>initiated in v. 33 as a rebuttal to Jesus' challenge
>for them to continue) dealt with. in my opinion, that
>is a very important aspect of the text. when did
>abraham "see" this? precisely what "event" is Jesus
>referring to here?

A major problem here is that i cannot imagine how the narrative of Genesis
17 could be understood as relating Abraham's joy at seeing Jesus' day. The
text of Jn 8:56 cites Jesus as telling his listeners: ABRAAM hO PATHR hUMWN
HGALLIASATO hINA IDHi THN hHMERAN THN EMHN, KAI EIDEN KAI ECARH. I simply
don't understand how the event recounted in Genesis 17 can be identified
with the "seeing" here described by Jesus. Nor am I aware of any account in
canonical scripture of such a vision of the day of Jesus.

>so that's what i was looking for--something in the
>context of abraham's life which might indicate what
>Christ is referring to in John 8. and to me, what is
>more important than the verbal parallels (which i
>would probably limit to AGRAM and EGW EIMI and perhaps
>what/who appeared (+) and what/who he saw (-)) is the
>reference to the abrahamic event.

For my part I think the more significant links with the Johannine EGW EIMI
texts in the LXX is Second Isaiah, especially Is 43, and I DO think that
the author of GJn is familiar with the LXX of the text of Second Isaiah.
But this is really not the appropriate forum to pursue this inquiry as it
is necessarily speculative and goes beyond understanding of the Greek
Biblical text itself. That was the problem with the original thread on John
8:58, or should I say, "with the ever renewed thread on John 8:58."

>><Carl>
>>(3) I'm not sure why the change of name should be
>thought significant here; after Gen 17:5 the form
>ABRAAM is standard in the LXX (210x) and it is
>standard in the GNT (73x: the form ABRAM is NOT found
>in the GNT).
>
><doug>
>i didn't really think it was. i only noted it because
>Gen 17.1 had ABRAM while John 8 had ABRAAM. and i
>noticed that here was his name change. so i thought it
>may be a bit significant though not central.
>
Yes, and evidently Mike Sangrey felt it was very important, inasmuch as he
put a special twist of interpretation on PRIN ABRAAM GENESQAI as "before
Abram was born as/became Abraham." That's very clever indeed, but I really
don't find it any more convincing than the linkage generally between Gen 17
and Jn 8.

>><Carl>
>>(4) IDHi + acc. direct object/WFQH + dative: while
>these forms are suppletions associated with the same
>composite irregular verb built on three different
>roots (hORA, wEID/wOID/wID, OP), the usages in these
>two phrases are fundamentally different: hINA IDHi is
>in effect an infinitive following upon HGALLIASATO and
>does mean "to see" while WFQH with dative is the
>standard formula for a supernatural vision ("appeared
>to ...").
>
><doug>
>i realized this as well. but they seemed to be the two
>sides of the coin. YHWH appeared => ABRAM saw (thus
>the + and - above). and since Jesus was referring to
>something abraham "saw" i thought it may be helpful to
>see what/who had "appeared" to abraham as recorded in
>Genesis.

Even granting that--and granting furthermore that Abraham's vision
of "the day of Jesus" or of THN EMHN hHMERAN (Jn 8:56) must be a
supernatural vision, it's hard for me to see how the appearance of
YHWH to Abram/Abraham in Genesis 17 is the event to which Jesus
refers in Jn 8:58.

>><Carl>
>>(6) EGW EIMI; there continues to be dispute over
>whether EIMI in John 8:58 is existential ("I exist")
>or a copula with an implicit predicate-word ("I am
>he"); in Gen 17:1 EIMI is unquestionably a copula
>linking the speaker's EGW with the predicate nominal
>expression, hO QEOS SOU, a rather weak (I'd say) Greek
>formulation of the original Hebrew ANI EL-SHADDAY,
>wherein the copula is implicit rather than expressed.
>
><doug>
>what are your thoughts about it doing double-duty
>here? for example, serving as a reference to existence
>(contrasted with PRIN ABRAAM GENESQAI) AND as a sort
>of aposiopesis of Genesis 17:1 (EGW EIMI hO QEOS SOU).
>does this sound unreasonable/far-fetched in your
>opinion?

We are again in the realm of speculation, but my own view is that the
instances of EGW EIMI that are most fruitful for comparison with and
the best candidates for influence upon the Johannine usage are those in
the LXX of Second Isaiah; I won't cite them, but you may check the LXX
texts of Is 41:4, 43:10, 43:24, 45:18, 45:22, 46:9, 47:8, 47:10, 48:12,
48:17, 51:12, 52:6. For comparison with Jn 8:58 perhaps sufficient is Is 48:12
AKOUE MOU IAKWB KAI ISRAHL hON EGW KALW EGW EIMI PRWTOS KAI EGW EIMI EIS
TON AIWNA.

>><Carl>
>>(7) Is it supposed that either Jesus in the
>confrontation narrated in John 8 or the evangelist who
>composed the narrative had the GREEK LXX text of
>Genesis 17:1 in mind in formulating the phrasing of
>John 8:58?
>
><doug>
>is that unreasonable though? would they not have been
>familiar with the LXX text? does that not appear to be
>the primary source for NT quotations of the OT? but i
>think it is pretty apparent that we do not have a
>quotation but an allusion here. so i wouldn't go to
>the wall for this one. like is said before, to me, the
>primary link between the two is the reference to the
>abrahamic event. and i would propose that this is the
>the appearance of YHWH in the abrahamic covenant which
>in the minds of the listeners was the starting
>point/focus/essence of their faith (e.g., that they
>were children of abraham who received the promises of
>the seed, the people, the land, the kingdom, etc.).
>this event defined them as a people--the people of
>YHWH.

I think it very likely that the author of GJn knew the LXX text and
I have said as much above; I think that this author knew the LXX text
of Second Isaiah very well indeed. But I think it's a different matter
altogether to speculate that Jesus was familiar with the Greek LXX text.
In sum, then, I'm not at all troubled by the thought that the author
of GJn may have alluded to the LXX text of the OT. But I continue to
be very dubious indeed that we should find in Jn 8:58 an allusion to
the LXX of Genesis 17.

>><Carl>
>>I'm sorry to be pouring cold water over this
>hypothesis; others may find it appealing; I think it's
>interesting but insubstantial in the face of the
>critical questions.
>
><doug>
>so if we do not focus on the verbal parallels (do not
>employ them in the argument), what are your thoughts
>about the conceptual parallels regarding what abraham
>saw (john 8.56)? does that provide a link in your
>opinion? do you think that this has no basis at all?

I think that the verbal parallels are needed to establish what
is called "intertextuality"--any sort of deliberate authorial
allusion to another known text that the author may expect a
knowledgeable reader to recognize. I think that the texts from
Second Isaiah, not least of all Is 48:12 are sufficient to establish
a meaningful justification for the assertion of Jn 8:58: PRIN ABRAAM
GENESQAI EGW EIMI. But I think there has to be more than verbal
parallelism; I think there has to be a conceptual parallelism that
is highlighted by the verbal parallelism. And I really can't see any
authentic conceptual parallelism between LXX Gen 17 and GNT Jn 8:58.

I've responded to your questions more fully than is appropriate for
this forum. The issues of literary and textual criticism here involve
hermeneutical assumptions and very likely theological assumptions as
well that are going to be shared by few if any of our list-members. It
really is best not to bring this kind of issue to discussion on B-Greek.
-- 

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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