[B-Greek] Matt 24:5 Direct or Indirect Discourse

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Sat Oct 22 07:07:41 EDT 2005


Glenden Riddle <glendenpriddle at yahoo.com>
Fri Oct 21 17:16:57 EDT 2005

"Can anyone see any way possible that those saying, EGW EIMI hO CRISTOS,
in Matt 24:5 could be teachers saying that Jesus is the Messiah, and  
they do
believe that, but they lead people away from the truth of God's Word  
due to
self-deception or ignorance.
"It seems to me that to take the verse this way would require taking  
the Greek
following the participle LEGONTES as indirect discourse. It would  
also require
taking the verb PLANAW as unintentionally leading someone down the wrong
path rather than a conscious attempt to lead them from truth."

Text:  POLLOI GAR ELEUSONTAI EPI TWi ONOMATI MOU LEGONTES:
EGW EIMI hO CRISTOS, KAI POLLOUS PLANHSOUSIN.

I am baffled by the suggested interpretation. It seems to me that the  
suggested
intention would require -- at least normally -- something like  
LEGONTES ME
EINAI TON CRISTON, or something similar. As for the suggestion that  
these
POLLOI are sincere believers who somehow mislead many others, while I
can imagine such a scenario (there are all too many sincere people  
who are
wrong-headed and mislead others!), I can't see it as indicated here: the
phrasing of the saying as a whole does not point to those who come
asserting anything other than that each such comer is himself the  
Christ. In
sum I do think that EGW EIMI hO CRISTOS is a direct citation.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/




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