[B-Greek] INA GINWSKOMEN - 1Jn 5:20
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Fri Jul 11 14:22:27 EDT 2008
Carlton egrapse:
> This does involve a textual problem, however which way is the
problem. Just because Metzger and the committee chose not to consider
it in the Textual Commentary or in the UBS texts does not mean that
the indicative could not be original. The Nestle-Aland 27th gives the
data and the claim of the indicative to originality is strong. In
fact in the face of the Alexandrian heavy weights, Aleph, A, B, & 33,
UBS chose to ignore the fact that -KOMEN must be the original which
gave rise to -KWMEN as a correction. I would consider that the
indicative is most likely original and would be an instance of the
use of the indicative with hINA. N.-A. 27 does print the subjunctive
but the 25th edition gives the sign in the aparatus that the editors
think that the indicative has a strong case to be original.
Tischendorf, Westcott/Hort, Merk and Souter list the indicative as
original.
>I do not want to start a discussion of TC over this, just to say that
the scribes who passed on the indicative must be considered, and the
use of the indicative dealt with.
>Carlton Winbery
I appreciate Carlton's conclusion that the "indicative" must be dealt
with.
There is one more dimension to consider.
GINWSKOMEN is pronounced the same as GINWSKWMEN in the
first century. The YPOTAKTIKH 'subjunctive' was functional
and part of the language even when it was not always marked
unambiguously. I am certain that anyone who heard INA GINWSKOMEN
being read out loud would have 'heard' a subjunctive, no matter how it
was spelled. I also have no doubt that a writer could 'think'
YPOTAKTIKH and write GINWSKOMEN. I do similar things every day.
What is amazing to me is that the 'indicative spelling' is preserved in a
significant group of manuscripts. In antiquity people would have received
letters all the time with cross-spellings of such homonyms.
So I would call 1Jo 5:20 GINWSKOMEN a subjunctive, though as a
probable/possible misspelling or sub-standard spelling.
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth at gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
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