[B-Greek] GENNAW

william zeitler william at faithfulbible.com
Fri May 27 13:46:34 EDT 2005


> Ahhhhh...but Nicodemus' misunderstanding gives US clues regarding the
> meaning of the Greek words in their context.  

Of course! And GENNAW occurs frequently in the NT, the Hellenic literature, 
LXX, etc. so there is no lack of raw material for understanding the word.

At the same time Jesus was wont to use words in ways that are unique to Him. 
(ZWH comes to mind). Heck, Nicodemus is getting confused in this very pasage 
because Jesus is using GENNAW in a sense unique to Him.

>In other words,
> the use of the words in that context is sufficiently ambiguous to the
> original language group so that it generates two meanings:  the one
> Jesus meant and the one Nicodemus understood. 

Of course! So by extension perhaps GENNAW is 'sufficiently ambiguous' that we 
also need to incorporate 'beget' as a possible intented meaning as Jesus used  
GENNAW.

best wishes,

william zeitler
---------------
On Friday 27 May 2005 09:43 am, Mike Sangrey wrote:
>
> Ahhhhh...but Nicodemus' misunderstanding gives US clues regarding the
> meaning of the Greek words in their context.  And this context needs to
> be thought of as "the original socio-linguistic environment" and not
> just constrained to the text as we have it before us.  In other words,
> the use of the words in that context is sufficiently ambiguous to the
> original language group so that it generates two meanings:  the one
> Jesus meant and the one Nicodemus understood.  If we want to get AT the
> Greek, we have to fully engage BOTH meanings.  What this ends up doing,
> thankfully, is sharpening OUR understanding of what the original words
> really meant.



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