[B-Greek] Some Questions on John 5
Elizabeth Kline
kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Thu Oct 8 16:35:27 EDT 2009
On Oct 8, 2009, at 12:34 PM, Kenneth Litwak wrote:
> 2. I am wondering about the meaning of ECW in the first several
> verses. John 5:2 uses ECOUSA with its typical sense of "have." In
> John 5:5, however, ECWN in ECWN EN THk ASQENEIAi AUTOU, it seems
> that ECW must be rendered, as BDAG does, something like "having been
> in his illness."
>
> While I agree with BDAG that this seems to be what has to be done
> in English, Louw-Nida do not list "to be/have been" as part of the
> semantic domain of ECW. So I'm wondering if this usage in John is a
> well-established idiom or if this is a case where, whatever a native
> Greek speaker might have thought ECWN meant, we have to punt in
> English for a sentence that makes sense. Or, alternatively, is "have
> been" really a logical extension of the semantic domain of ECW?
I would suggest reading the entire entry for ECW in LSJ. ECO has a
vast range of meanings and functions. It can be used to indicate
being or remaining in a state with the state indicated in a
preposition phrase. This is not unusual.
Elizabeth Kline
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list