[B-Greek] John 7:15 re GRAMMATA

George F Somsel gfsomsel at juno.com
Tue Nov 1 16:48:53 EST 2005


On Tue, 01 Nov 2005 14:57:32 -0600 "Dan Gleason" <dan-bgreek at hotmail.com>
writes:
> John 7:15 re GRAMMATA
> 
> I looked up grammata in another online lexicon 
> (http://www.greekbible.com/) 
> and here is what it says ...
> 
> 1) a letter  2) any writing, a document or record  2a) a note of 
> hand, bill, 
> bond, account, written  acknowledgement of a debt  2b) a letter, an 
> epistle  
> 2c) the sacred writings (of the OT)  3) letters, i.e. learning  3a) 
> of 
> sacred learning
> 
> I know what both of you are saying but two different lexicons have 
> multiple 
> meanings for grammata.
> Is one of the meanings "Letters of the alphabet" or not?
> Is it remotely possible that grammata in Jn 7:15 might be a play on 
> words?
> 
> Consider this passage from the Infancy gospel of Thomas where Jesus 
> teaches 
> his teacher about letters ... (Source: THE GNOSTIC SOCIETY LIBRARY) 
> ...
><SNIP> 
> As you can see, this "gospel" (written after canonical John) seems 
> to talk 
> about a special kind of "teaching" regarding "letters." I am sure 
> the Jews 
> wouldn't be amazed because Jesus as a grown man knew how to write 
> "letters." 
> Maybe Jesus knew the scriptures and had a brand new interpretation 
> of the OT 
> text (based on interpreting the letters in the text) that came from 
> God? If 
> he taught something and it made sense this would indeed amaze the 
> Jews.
> 
> Dan Gleason
____________

Are you referring to a Kabbalistic interpretation?  If so, this would be
the only intimation of such.  I seriously doubt that to be the case. 
Nothing else in the text supports it.  I think we should stick to
understanding what the text fairly plainly says rather than looking for
hidden meanings -- after all, understanding the meaning of the text is
the raison d'etre of this list.

george
gfsomsel
___________



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