[B-Greek] EN vs. EIS in John 16:13a - translation question
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Mon Sep 21 10:00:42 EDT 2009
On Sep 21, 2009, at 8:58 AM, Eric S. Weiss wrote:
> John 16:13a (NA-27/UBS 4): hOTAN DE ELQHi EKEINOS, TO PNEUMA THS
> ALHQEIAS,
> hODHGHSEI hUMAS EN THi ALHQEIAi PASHi....
>
> UBS 4 gives this reading a {B} rating, and lists the variant hODHGHSEI
> hUMAS EIS PASAN THN ALHQEIAN as being that of the Byzantine textual
> tradition, as well as in many other mss. Yet a look at
> Biblegateway.com
> shows that all the English translations there give some form of "He
> will
> lead/guide you into all the truth," which looks to be a translation
> of the
> EIS variant, and not the NA-27/UBS text that has EN + the dative.
>
> It seems to me that hODHGHSEI hUMAS EN THi ALHQEIAi PASHi describes
> the
> manner or path in which the Spirit will lead/guide the disciples (and
> hence Christians), rather than the goal or end-point of such
> leading/guiding. I.e., the leading or guidance of the Spirit is one
> controlled and directed by Truth - "He will lead/guide you in all
> [the]
> truth" - rather than "He will lead/guide you into/to the truth."
>
> If so, why do almost all translations opt for a translation of the EIS
> textual variant instead of the NA-27/UBS 4 text, if that is indeed
> what
> they're doing (assuming that "into" is not a likely translation of
> EN in
> this passage)? How would you translate the NA/UBS text of John
> 16:13a if
> you do not think "into all the truth" is a correct translation of
> hODHGHSEI hUMAS EN THi ALHQEIAi PASHi?
I think that the translators are presenting the proper meaning in
terms of Koine usage rather than attempting to preserve an earlier
distinction between a strictly locative sense of EN or strictly
directional sense of EIS. The fact is that the two prepositions and
their case usage are substituted often enough for each other in NT
Koine.
George has already given you the direct citation from BDAG. I won't
cite BDF directly, but I would refer you to the following §§:
§205. Εἰς [EIS] instead of ἐν [EN] in a local sense.
§206. Interchange of εἰς [EIS] and ἐν [EN] in a metaphorical
sense.
§218. Statistics for ἐν [EN] and the interchange of ἐν [EN] and
εἰς [EIS] .
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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