Re: OU+PAS (1 John 2:19) (Romans 9:6 reconsidered)

From: Paul Dixon - Ladd Hill Bible Church (pauld@iclnet.org)
Date: Fri Jun 06 1997 - 12:00:45 EDT


On Thu, 5 Jun 1997, Carl W. Conrad wrote:

> At 11:38 AM -0400 6/5/97, Jim Beale wrote:
> >On Jun 4, 9:59pm, Paul Dixon - Ladd Hill Bible Church wrote:
> >> Just this. Check out 1 Jn 3:9, the classic refutation of
> >> antinomianism verse. There we have something similar going on. Yet I
> >> opt for the universal negation translation simply because of the immediate
> >> context which certainly calls for it. More later.
> >
> > PAS hO GEGENNHMENOS EK TOU QEOU hAMARTIAN
> > OU POIEI hOTI SPERMA AUTOU EN AUTWi MENEI
> > KAI OU DUNATAI hAMARTANEIN hOTI EK TOU QEOU
> > GEGENNHTAI
> >
> >Is PAS+OU+verb the same as OU+verb+PAS?
> >
> >The idea seems to be: "All the ones having been born of God do not
> >sin ..." which is equivalent to "None of those who have been born of
> >God sin ..."
> >
> >The text itself seems clear and unambiguous to me. Is there some
> >reason you see to move to the context to support the universal
> >negation?
>
> I think you have a Semitism here: PAS ho ... = KOL ... In this
> instance PAS is not "all" or "every" but rather "any(one)." Better
> (Classical Attic) Greek would have the form hOSTIS AN EK TOU QEOU
> GEGENNHTAI OU POIEI ... or EAN TIS EK TOU QEOU GEGENNHTAI, OU POIEI ...

Yes, that is precisely what I was wondering about. According to usage,
was there a more definitive and less ambiguous way of expressing a
universal negation? It certainly seemed like there would be. If that is
so for Classical Attic Greek, was it also for Koine and NT Greek? At
any rate, JB's hypothesis is interesting. Can we find a clear example
where OU+verb+PAS does not communicate a universal negation in the NT?

Paul Dixon



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:38:18 EDT