[B-Greek] John 9:3 punctuation question

Peter Hamm peter at hamm-multimedia.com
Mon Mar 7 11:10:57 EST 2005


I'm hoping that some insight from those more well versed in the ancient
manuscripts can help us with a question about John 9:3. Where the text says
""but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life"
and THEN a period. Where did that period come from? When was it decided,
since there wasn't any punctuation in the original manuscripts. Obviously
there's a theological issue of whether God "caused" the man to be born
blind, but I'm more interested in the simple LINGUISTIC answer; hence this
post. Two separate commentaries I recently consulted suggest that the phrase
"so that the work of God might be displayed" should be seen as part of the
NEXT verse, meaning that "this thing" that happened was not that the man was
born blind, but that Christ came along at that time and for that purpose. 

But no modern translation that I have encountered punctuates these verses
this way. The excellent NET Bible doesn't even have a footnote dealing with
this question (perhaps it should), and NA27 seems to indicate that this
verse in question doesn't even seem to have any significant variation in the
different witnesses. (There is NO aparatus for this verse in NA27, in other
words, also no discussion in Metzger's TCGNT)

I realize, as I stated above, that there's a theological issue with this.
Please, in the spirit of the list's purpose, I'm only looking for a
linguistic perspective. Is that punctuation debatable? Or not?

Thanks,
Peter Hamm
Greek Newbie





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