[B-Greek] John 2:15--PANTAS ... TA TE PROBATA AND TOUS BOAS

Leonard Jayawardena leonardj at live.com
Fri Oct 29 08:06:43 EDT 2010




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> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] John 2:15--PANTAS ... TA TE PROBATA AND TOUS BOAS
> From: cwconrad2 at mac.com
> Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 05:43:18 -0400
> CC: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> To: leonardj at live.com
>
> On Oct 26, 2010, at 1:59 AM, Leonard Jayawardena wrote:
> >
> >
> > I came across the following instructive parallels to John 2:15--i.e., passages having the TE ... KAI structure--while doing other studies in the NT. (The last thread on this topic was closed more than two months ago--due to no fault of mine--and I hope that it is not too soon to post another message on the same topic.)
> >
> > 1. PANTI TWi PISTEUONTI, IOUDAIWi TE PRWTON KAI hLLHNI (Romans 1:16)--"to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and to the Greek"
> >
> > 2. EPI PASAN YSUCHN ANQRWPOU TOU KATERGAZOMENOU TO KAKON, IOUDAIOU TE PRWTON KAI hLLHNOS (Romans 2:9)--"upon every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and of the Greek"
> >
> > 3. PANTI TWi ERGAZOMENOU TO AGAQON, IOUDAIWi TE PRWTON KAI hALLHNI (Romans 2:10)--"to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and to the Greek"
> >
> > 4. IOUDAIOUS TE KAI hLLHNAS PANTAS hUF' hAMARTIAN EINAI (Romans 3:9)--"all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin"
> >
> > In all of the above cases, the TE ... KAI phrase is in aposition to PAS, furnishing an exact parallel to John 2:15.
>
> #2 doesn't quite fit your mold exactly in terms of grammar, since the TE ... KAI links ANQRWPOU KATERGAZOMENOU TO KAKON subspecies..
> >
> > In the following passages, a TE ... KAI phrase is in aposition to some other word:
> >
> > 1. KATEBHSAN AMFOTEROI EIS TO hUDWR, hO TE FILIPPOS KAI hO EUNOUCOS (Acts 8:38)--"they both went down into the water, Philipp as well as the eunuch"
> >
> > 2. hOPWS EAN TINAS hEURH THS hDOU ONTAS, ANDRAS TE KAI GUNAIKAS (Acts 9:2)--"so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women"
> >
> > How many more such examples are necessary to prove that PANTAS ... TA TE PROBATA AND TOUS BOAS in John 2:15 means "all ... both the sheep and the oxen"?
>
> It would probably require more than this, since PANTAS is a general masculine plural not attached directly to a noun and not followed by an intervening verb. Your interpretation may be valid, but you haven't convinced everyone that it's the only way this text can be construed.

> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)

 
LJ: Some additional comments on the above.
 
Romans 1:20--TA GAR AORATA AUTOU APO KTISEWS KOSMOU TOIS POIHMASIN NOOUMENA KAQORATAI, hH TE AIDIOS AUTOU DUNAMIS KAI QEIOTHS, EIS TO EINAI AUTOUS ANAPOLOGHTOS.
 
NASB transalation: "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what is made, so that they are without excuse."
 
Note that hH TE AIDIOS AUTOU DUNAMIS KAI QEIOTHS is in apposition to TA AORATA AUTOU, in spite of the distance between them with the main verb and a participial phrase intervening. Therefore EXEBALLEN in PANTAS EXEBALLEN EK TOU hIEROU, TA TE PROBATA KAI TOUS BOAS should not get in the way of our seeing TA TE PROBATA KAI TOUS BOAS as being in apposition to PANTAS.
 
TE alone used alone can mean simply "and," e.g., Acts 2:37, AKOUSANTES DE KATENUGHSAN THN KARDIAN EIPON TE PROS TON PETRON ...("... and they said to Peter"). POLLA TE TERATA KAI SHMEIA DIA TWN APOSTOLWN EGINETO (Acts 2:43) is rendered usually "and many signs and wonders were done through the apostles." Here we have two nouns in a TE ... KAI structure where TE can be rendered "and." It is possibly because of this possibility of translation that we have translations like "He drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen" (KJV). This is rendered more idiomatically by some as "with the sheep and the oxen." However, in Acts 2:43 POLLA TE TERATA KAI SHMEIA begins a new clause unlike TA TE PROBATA KAI TOUS BOAS, which, if rendered as it is in KJV, becomes just an addition to the preceding words--an awkwardly contructed verbless afterthought--quite different from the way phrases with a TE ... KAI structure are used elsewhere, e.g. passages I have cited in my last two emails and many others.  
 
 
Leonard Jayawardena
  		 	   		  


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