[B-Greek] Auton in Jn. 6:44

Steve Runge srunge at logos.com
Tue Sep 22 10:01:06 EDT 2009


See below 

-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Carl Conrad
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 2:58 AM
To: David Koot
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Auton in Jn. 6:44


On Sep 22, 2009, at 12:43 AM, David Koot wrote:

> This question has come up a number of times, and in researching I 
> still am not clear.  Oudeis appears to be the subject, the verse is
> a Greek conditional sentence.  What is the antecedent of auton?   
> What is the referent noun?  I had posted this question a few days, but 
> realized that I had originally signed up to the mailing list under a 
> different email addy, so wasn't sure if my post made it the first 
> time!

I don't recall seeing this question before, and a quick search of the archives didn't bring up anything either.

We ordinarily like to have the text in question before our eyes to help us think about an issue:

John 6:44 οὐδεὶς δύναται ἐλθεῖν πρός με ἐὰν μὴ ὁ πατὴρ ὁ πέμψας με ἑλκύσῃ αὐτόν, κἀγὼ ἀναστήσω αὐτὸν ἐν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ.
[OUDEIS DUNATAI ELQEIN PROS ME EAN MH hO PATHR hO PEMYAS ME hELKUSHi AUTON, KA)GW ANASTHSW AUTON EN THi ESCATHi hHMERAi.]

Yes, this is a general condition; in this instance the apodosis setting forth the universal result comes before the protasis, the generalizing proposition which must be true if the result is to obtain.

Logically OUDEIS DUNATAI  "not a person can ... " = OU DUNATAI TIS: "a person cannot ... "
Logically the condition "If the Father who sent me does not draw/ attract/incite a person, the person does not come ... "

So: yes, OUDEIS is the implicit antecedent of AUTON; the negation in OUDEIS really applies to the verb of the clause.
Academic linguists will likely offer a different kind of gobbledygook to explain this; in fact, they may do so in more than one framework.

SER: Here's your gobbledygook for the day: The negative particle, even when joined to a pronoun, negates the entire clause. Some of the older grammars talk about negating an individual clause component, but is quite correct in claiming that the entire proposition is negated. The reason for the pragmatic movement of the particle (or the joining of it with a pronoun) it to indicate marked focus or emphasis. In this case, the rhetorical effect of say that "no one" can do something is to come in later and add an exception which contradicts/corrects the original proposition. In comparison to the negative pronoun, the excepted element is the more important rhetorical element. The negated element in this case serves as a foil to set the stage for what follows.

There is a paper I delivered at the 2007 ETS meeting on the "nuances of negation" where issues like this are discussed. It is available in PDF here: http://preview.tinyurl.com/nnp8oo. Get used to this kind of thing, John uses it a lot.

Steven Runge, DLitt (Biblical Languages)
Scholar-in-Residence
Logos Bible Software
www.ntdiscourse.org
 


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