From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Feb 22 1996 - 21:27:01 EST
On 2/22/96, Mark O'Brien wrote:
> A brief question about this verse: Should TOUTO be considered as the subject
> ("This was the second sign...", ala NIV, RSV, etc.), or is it in fact the
>object
> in an object complement construction, with hO IHSOUS as the subject
>("Jesus did
> THIS as a second sign...")?
>
> The lack of a relative pronoun would seem to argue against the former option,
> since it seems unlikely that this would be ellided, and then one is stuck with
> trying to work out what to do with hO IHSOUS.
>
> I would appreciate any comments you all might have. Thanks!
TOUTO DEUTERON SHMEION is the object of EPOIHSEN. Nevertheless, I would
approve of translating "This was the second miracle that Jesus performed,"
for the reason that it is the sense emphasized by the word order. The
rhetoric of the verse, I think, often dictates what the most appropriate
English should be--rather than the grammatical structure of the Greek
sentence.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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