[B-Greek] JN 10:20 hO PATHR hO DEDWKEN MOI PANTWN MEIZWN ESTIN
Elizabeth Kline
kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Thu Jul 24 15:33:39 EDT 2008
On Jul 23, 2008, at 8:15 PM, James Ernest wrote:
> OK, I had to look up a bigger chunk of context, but I think I see what
> Cooper is getting at, and also (finally) what you were suggesting.
> In the
> first example (Parmenides), we had
>
> hH hUPOTHESIS hH EI POLLA ESTIN
>
> Cooper says says EI POLLA ESTIN is appositive to hH hUPOTHESIS. (I
> said
> attributive. Whatever.) Which hypothesis? --the EI POLLA ESTIN
> hypothesis.
>
> In the second example (from Politicus), we have (implied):
>
> THN EPISTHMHN THN EI DEI MANQANEIN H MH
>
> Same deal. Which science? --the EI DEI MANQANEIN H MH science.
>
> So you were wondering whether the Sinaiticus* reading in John 10:29 is
> analogous:
>
> hO PATHR [MOU] hO DEDWKEN MOI PANTWN MEIZWN ESTIN
>
> Well, it doesn't look likely to me. In both of Cooper's examples,
> the noun
> (hUPOTHESIS or EPISTHMH) refers to verbal content which has to be
> specified,
> and Plato specifies it by spelling it out in the clause that is made
> attributive (or appositive) to said noun by repetition of the
> article. "The
> hypothesis that there are many things" and "the science of whether
> or not
> one ought to learn" make sense to me--each noun is defined by the
> following
> clause, which in each case begins with a conjunction ("that" or
> "whether",
> EI). In John, there's no conjunction, and the clause ("he gave to
> me") does
> not define the noun ("father"). PATHR is not a noun that indicates
>
> discourse.
Thank you James,
I agree that Cooper is not describing what is going on in the
Sinaiticus reading for John 10:29. What Cooper is describing is
similar to what we find in BDF #267, Turner p182 and ATR 766. So if we
just set aside that issue, and forget about Cooper, BDF, Turner and
ATR. Returning to Codex Sinaiticus JN 10:29 and Westcott and Metzger's
statements that this is impossible greek which cannot be construed:
>>
>> Codex Sinaiticus*[c]
>> JOHN 10:29 hO PATHR [MOU] hO DEDWKEN MOI PANTWN MEIZWN ESTIN
My question is a linguistic one. Is this a well formed sentence? What
is the function of hO? It seems to me that hO marks what follows,
DEDWKEN MOI, as something that qualifies hO PATHR. I don't seem to
have any problem reading this sentence[1]. The relative hOS DEDWKEN
MOI is an easier read but calling hO DEDWKEN MOI "impossible greek"
appears to me unwarranted. The corrector [c] of Sinaiticus didn't
have a problem with it. That should give us a sufficient reason to go
looking for a way to make sense out of the syntax of this text, not to
just declare it ungreek.
Elizabeth Kline
[1] My current inclination is to question N.Turner's blanket denial
that hO can function as a relative in NT greek.
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