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1 John 2:6. Where does the comma go?

Posted: November 15th, 2016, 4:56 pm
by Jacob Rhoden
ὁ λέγων ἐν αὐτῷ μένειν ὀφείλει, καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν, καὶ αὐτὸς °οὕτως περιπατεῖν

This is copied from NA28. When I read/translated this, it came out different to the Bible's I checked with. It seems to me that they are translating as if ὀφείλει belongs after the comma. WBC commentary also appears to me to treat the Greek in the same way— ὀφείλει after the comma.

My Greek grammar/syntax is not yet that great, I wanted to ask:

1. Is my assessment of the situation correct?
2. Assuming this is correct, what creates room for the debate, is it around the question of if καθὼς is being placed before or after another word (postpositively? The grammatical term for this eludes my memory right now)

Re: 1 John 2:6. Where does the comma go?

Posted: November 15th, 2016, 10:49 pm
by Robert Crowe
καθὼς is correlative to the deictic adverb οὕτως which somewhat clumsily follows it, instead of preceding it. A more natural rendering would be as follows:

ὁ λέγων ἐν αὐτῷ μένειν ὀφείλει οὕτως, καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν, καὶ αὐτὸς [οὕτως] περιπατεῖν.
He who says that he abides in him should thus, as he walked, also himself walk.

This deictic adverb is often not explicit in Greek or English.