No subject
Tue May 3 10:41:24 EDT 2011
The sense "from the top" is very similar, and from that is derived "from the
beginning", that is, all over again.
Nicodemus should (?) have been able to understand that Jesus was speaking
about a spiritual birth, but he was thinking in terms of a normal, physical
birth (see v. 4), and a second physical birth is, of course, an absurdity.
Jesus then goes on to contrast the ordinary physical birth with the
spiritual birth in v. 5-6 in order to help Nicodemus to understand the
meaning of "born from above". For the spiritual birth Jesus uses two almost
identical expressions in these verses (apart from being born from above).
They are "born of (the) spirit" - EK (TOU) PNEUMATOS - in v. 5 and 6. For
the physical birth he uses two different, but parallel expressions. They are
"born of the flesh" - EK TOU SARKOS - in v. 6 and EX hUDATOS" in v. 5. (As
you are probably aware, the meaning of being born EX hUDATOS is much
disputed. I understand it is physical birth because of the context and
parallelisms and contrasts involved.)
Iver Larsen
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list