[B-Greek] JOHN 21:10 ... hWN EPIASATE NUN

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Mon Mar 16 18:50:32 EDT 2009


JOHN 21:10 LEGEI AUTOIS hO IHSOUS: ENEGKATE APO TWN OYARIWN hWN  
EPIASATE NUN.

What is the pragmatic function of  hWN EPIASATE NUN? This  clause  
isn't required to identify the referent of  TWN OYARIWN and  Jesus'  
speech acts in John are typically semantically underdetermined, except  
in cases of wisdom sayings where there is some sort parallelism. This  
might might be understood to suggest that some attention is being  
drawn to conditions under which these fish were caught. Something  
like, bring the fish you caught just now (with my help, after fishing  
all night without result).

This would fit in with one possible reading of the story where Peter  
is seen leading some of his fellow disciples off on a little  
boondoggle v.3 LEGEI AUTOIS SIMWN PETROS: hUPAGW hALIEUEIN. LEGOUSIN  
AUTWi: ERCOMEQA KAI hHMEIS SUN SOI ... where their wasted effort is  
underlined by Jesus' actions and words including SIMWN IWANNOU, AGAPA  
ME PLEON TOUiTWN where the less popular reading of PLEON TOUiTWN (more  
than these things, i.e., your former vocation with all the trappings).

This is one way to make this story hang together (coherence), not the  
only way.




Elizabeth Kline







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