[B-Greek] John 9:3 punctuation question
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Mar 7 11:38:06 EST 2005
At 11:10 AM -0500 3/7/05, Peter Hamm wrote:
>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?
There really is no problem with the text; the problem, so far as I can see,
is that the phrasing is rather elliptical. The question posed by Jesus'
disciples in 9:2 (TIS hHMARTEN, hOUTOS H hOI GONEIS AUTOU, hINA TUFLOS
GENNHQHi?) implies that there must be some reason why the man was born
blind; the disciples assume that it must be a consequence of the man's own
sin or of his parents' sin, but the implicit question, especially as Jesus
reframes it, is "Why was this man born blind?" and Jesus answers THAT
question, "so that Gods deeds might become manifest in him."
I would disagree with the notion expressed in the commentaries you refer
to, although I obviously don't know what they are or exactly what they say.
I really think that this hINA-clause must depend upon an implicit
understanding of verse 2: "This man was born blind: why?"
--
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/
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list