[B-Greek] 1 Jn 4:17 MEQ' hHMWN--Different from EN hHMIN?

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Wed Jul 9 17:10:02 EDT 2008


On Jul 9, 2008, at 12:38 PM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:

> It seems to me that John has a firm grasp on the distinction between
> EN + Dative and META + Genitive. The later is almost exclusively used
> in the Gospel and Epistles with an 'associative' semantic value. This
> is a broad semantic category, so it doesn't tell us what nuance we
> should detect in  1 Jn 4:17 MEQ' hHMWN. Westcott's reading my be
> pushing the distinction a bit too far. On the other hand, reading EN
> hHMIN KAI MEQ' hHMWN 2Jn2 as saying the same thing twice doesn't seem
> to do justice to the evidence.

One could expect a counter argument to this along the lines that EN +  
Dative can also be found with an 'associative' semantic value.  
However' I would expect we could with a little work detect a semantic  
difference between an 'associative' EN + Dative and an 'associative'  
META + Genitive.

It might be helpful to take a look at John's use of PARA, EN, and META  
is JOHN 14:16-17:

JOHN 14:16 KAGW ERWTHSW TON PATERA KAI ALLON PARAKLHTON DWSEI hUMIN,  
hINA MEQ hUMWN EIS TON AIWNA Hi,  17 TO PNEUMA THS ALHQEIAS, hO hO  
KOSMOS OU DUNATAI LABEIN, hOTI OU QEWREI AUTO OUDE GINWSKEI: hUMEIS  
GINWSKETE AUTO, hOTI PAR' hUMIN MENEI KAI EN hUMIN ESTAI.

Here we seen MEQ hUMWN, PAR' hUMIN and EN hUMIN. L.Morris (Gosp.Jn 1st  
ed.) suggests, tentatively, that this might be nothing more than  
John's preference for variety of expression. This approach, if it is  
carried too far has a leveling affect. Just because thousands of years  
later we cannot determine any certainty what the author wanted to  
accomplish with these three different expressions, doesn't make it  
safe to assume he was saying the same thing three times.

Elizabeth Kline







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