[B-Greek] Jn 12:44
Webb
webb at selftest.net
Thu Nov 17 15:36:56 EST 2005
Wouldn't it be better to construe AUTOU with TO YEUDOS in the previous
clause?
Yancy
Of course, that's the whole question. On what basis? Grammatically, it tends
to want to attach to the nearest masc. sg. noun, which is YEUSTHS, and to
the understood subject of ESTIN, i.e. the Devil. I'm asserting, and I may be
wrong, that if you asked a person walking down the street in Corinth what
these statements by Jesus meant, they'd think Jesus was saying that the
Devil is a liar, and so is his father. Unless you know - or think you
know-that the Devil doesn't *have* a father, then that reading is not
excluded. If it is excluded, then the alternative is to relate AUTOU to TO
YEUDOS, which is further away.
It's not theologically impossible that the Devil has a father-in the same
sense that the Devil becomes father to those who join him in murderousness
and deceit. It's just that the Devil having a father is an unknown concept
in scripture apart from this one verse in John.
Webb Mealy
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