[B-Greek] Jn 20:28 - Grammatical difference between the nominative for vocative or of exclamation?

frjsilver at optonline.net frjsilver at optonline.net
Fri Mar 31 20:01:01 EST 2006


Dear Friends --

One of the most ancient Christian liturgical prayers still in use, the Trisagion, employs just such a construction:

        hAGIOS ho THEOS hAGIOS ISCUROS hAGIOS ATHANATOS ELEHSON hHMAS


The ancient Roman liturgy, while retaining this prayer in transliterated form, also preserves the grammar of the Greek in its Latin formula:

        SANCTUS DEUS SANCTUS FORTIS SANCTUS IMMORTALIS MISERERE NOBIS

While both THEOS and DEUS, etc., are clearly in the nominative form, this is regarded as an example of the 'emphatic vocative';  note that ELEHSON and MISERERE are 2PS imperative forms.

I regret that I can't adduce NT forms at the moment to corroborate the grammar  -- I wanted only to illustrate the point that it exists.

Monk James

Father James Silver
Orthodox Church in America

----- Original Message -----
From: Robb Wallace <robbw at calvary-tricities.org>
Date: Friday, March 31, 2006 6:03 pm
Subject: [B-Greek] Jn 20:28 - Grammatical difference between the nominative	for vocative or of exclamation?

> Jn 20:28  APEKRIQH QWMAS KAI EIPEN AUTWi, hO KURIOS MOU KAI hO 
> QEOS MOU.
> 
> 
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> 
> 
> The phrase “My Lord and my God” in Jn 20:28 contains articular 
> nominatives (Lord, God) which are identified by Robertson and 
> Wallace as the “Nominative for Vocative”. I would think the way 
> Jehovah’s Witnesses view this they would want to classify it as 
> the “Nominative for Exclamation”. Besides context (Jesus not 
> rebuking Thomas) is there a way to tell the difference between the 
> use of the nominative for vocative and the nominative of 
> exclamation strictly by syntax? Wallace lists 3 ways to identify: 
> (1) the lack of a verb (though one may be implied), (2) the 
> obvious emotion of the author, and (3) the necessity of an 
> exclamation point in translation. I would think reasons 2 and 3 
> could apply here, but would the verbs APEKRIQH and/or EIPEN 
> disqualify the phrase as a Nominative for Exclamation? Are there 
> any additional ways to support the Nom. for Vocative identification?
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> 
> 
> Robb Wallace
> 
> 
> -- 
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.3.4/299 - Release Date: 
> 3/31/2006 
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
> 



More information about the B-Greek mailing list