[B-Greek] John 16:33b EN TWi KOSMWi Locative or instrumental EN?

Mark Lightman lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Wed Sep 15 09:25:55 EDT 2010


Hi, Barry,

While it is true that the grammatical category "dative of source" does not 
technically exist, you must remember that nothing prevents Wallace from 
producing a sequel.  That being said, if you compare the EIV


"Hang with the world and it's a drag."
and the CCV

"what you have when you are engaged/involved with humanity at large, you suffer 
Angst."

and the NIV

"In this world you will have trouble."

it is clear that this is not your father's locative that we got up in here. 

<I hate reading grammars.  They give me a headache.  So now I'm really annoyed 
at you for making me do so.>

Sorry about that.  Mea culpa.  They say the two most horrifying things someone 
can say to you are:  1.  I'm a grammarian. and 2. I'm here to help you. 




 Mark L



FWSFOROS MARKOS




________________________________

It seems to me that this endeavor at categorization of the usage of EN in John 
16:33b is futile if not fruitless, outwallacing Wallace in that it is not 
content with establishment of a category "Aporetic Dative" to accompany the 
"aporetic genitive" and "aporetic nominative" case designations. We do speak 
sometimes of an "epexegetical infinitive" that "explains" the applicability of 
an adjective; here we might speak of an "exegetical dative": a dative case form 
derived from a puzzling exegesis of passage wherein this particular case-usage 
is unlike any other ever seen. One thing we do know is that instrumental usage 
of the dative with EN seems to have expanded in the Hellenistic era; we've had 
several discussions, as I recall, of EN used with PNEUMATI.

To get back to the text:
John 16:33 ταῦτα λελάληκα ὑμῖν ἵνα ἐν ἐμοὶ εἰρήνην ἔχητε. ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ θλῖψιν 
ἔχετε· ἀλλὰ θαρσεῖτε, ἐγὼ νενίκηκα τὸν κόσμον. 

John 16:33 TAUTA LELALHKA hUMIN hINA EN EMOI EIRHNHN ECHTE. EN TWi KOSMWi QLIYIN 
ECETE· ALLA QARSEITE, EGW NENIKHKA TON KOSMON.

I don't really see any great difficulty with EN TWi KOSMWi and EN EMOI: "I've 
discussed these matters with you so that you can be at peace when your 
engaged/involved with me; what you have when you are engaged/involved with 
humanity at large, you suffer Angst; but take heart: I've gotten the better of 
humanity at large." In these terms, it seems to me that there's really no 
difficulty in discerning in the dative usage of EN KOSMWi and EN EMOI a not 
uncommon Hellenistic conflation of locative and instrumental notions. And I 
really don't believe that I'm saying anything new or different in this analysis.

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



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