[B-Greek] John 7:15 re GRAMMATA

George F Somsel gfsomsel at juno.com
Tue Nov 1 13:29:33 EST 2005


On Tue, 01 Nov 2005 12:04:33 -0600 "Dan Gleason" <dan-bgreek at hotmail.com>
writes:
> John 7:15 re GRAMMATA
> 
> Thomas J. Kraus wrote:
> Dear Colleagues, I am writing a brief study about the phrase PWS 
> hOUTOS 
> GRAMMATA  OIDEN MH MEMAQHKWS (how does this one know letters without 
> having 
> learned  [them]) in reference to (il)literacy in late antiquity (as 
> I once 
> did for Acts  4:13 on the basis of formulae in documentary papyri).
> 
> Dr Carl Conrad answered: what the Greek text itself says doesn't 
> really seem 
> to be in dispute.
> 
> DG: I looked at the greek text for this verse today and I am having 
> a 
> problem with the last part of it. Is the following a correct 
> translation? 
> ...
> 
> Jn 7:15 ... Therefore the Jews were marveling, saying ...
> 
> PWS hOUTOS GRAMMATA OIDEN MH MEMAQHKWS.
> How does this man know LETTERS not having known them.
> 
> Re the word GRAMMATA,  a greek lexicon says
> "to write, with reference to the form of the letters, to delineate 
> (or form) 
> letters on a tablet, parchment, paper, or other material."
> 
> Is the text referring to Hebrew Letters or Greek Letters (or both) 
> which in 
> turn points to some kind of special teaching (a formula or 
> superstition like 
> letters equaling numbers).
> 
> My translation takes into consideration John 7:31 where some in the 
> crowd 
> were saying about his teaching that "The Christ" (xristos) would do 
> more 
> SIGNS (shmeia) than Jesus.
> 
> Dan Gleason
_____________

If you check BDAG (which you should own -- if not, buy it NOW), you will
find that GRAMMA, particularly in the pl GRAMMATA refers to knowledge or
learning in general.  This is similar to its usage in English.  The
_New_York_Sun_ even has a feature called "Arts and Letters" --
http://www.nysun.com/section/8.  Michigan State University has a College
of Arts and Letters -- http://www.cal.msu.edu/.  Surely you don't suppose
that these deal simply with the alphabet? 

george
gfsomsel
___________



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