From: Harold R. Holmyard III (hholmyard@ont.com)
Date: Sun Dec 03 2000 - 21:00:34 EST
Dear Roger,
My study of the phrase "this generation" in the Gospels suggested to me
that in every other case it referred to the people of Jesus' generation. So
I am impressed by the argument that you mention, and I interpret Matt 24:34
conformably to it. Of course, it is possible that Jesus had shifted his
perspective into an eschatological time frame, within which "this
generation" could be a near demonstrative. But the use of EKEINOS in verse
36 of that future setting, evidently in contrast with hOUTOS in verse 34,
argues against the use of hOUTOS in verse 34 as a near demonstrative within
an apocalyptic setting. It seems to speak of Jesus' generation.
Yours,
Harold Holmyard
>Recently, I was presented with the following argument. The person cited A
>Primer of Biblical Greek by N. Clayton Croy (Eerdmans, 1999) as stating,
>"Biblical Greek, like English, had a 'near' demonstrative, hOUTOS, for
>something relatively close in time, space or thought, and a 'far'
>demonstrative, EKEINOS, for something relatively distant."
>
>Based on this, the person argues that Jesus, by using the 'near'
>demonstrative, hOUTOS, in Matt 24:34 could only have been referring to those
>to whom he was physically speaking. Had Jesus wanted to refer to a future
>generation, he would have had to use the word EKEINOS.
>
>Is his argument valid?
--- B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [jwrobie@mindspring.com] To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Mon Feb 11 2002 - 18:40:08 EST