[B-Greek] AUTOU in Jo 9:6

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Fri Mar 18 09:42:09 EDT 2011


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wieland Willker" <wie at uni-bremen.de>
To: "B-Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: 18. marts 2011 15:51
Subject: [B-Greek] AUTOU in Jo 9:6


> John 9:6 TAUTA EIPWN EPTUSEN CAMAI KAI EPOIHSEN PHLON EK TOU PTUSMATOS KAI
> EPECRISEN AUTOU TON PHLON EPI TOUS OFQALMOUS
>
> AUTOU is strange here.
> Is it possible that we have here a "dative-genitive", a genitive with dative
> meaning, like in Modern Greek? D/05 has the dative here, actually.
> Or does it refer to PTUSMATOS: "the mud of it (the saliva)"?
>
>
> Best wishes
>    Wieland
>    <><

I can see that Carl already responded before I had a change to send my 2 pence:

Since the verb takes two accusatives, one for the substance (mud) and one for
the recipient (blind man), AUTOU can hardly be governed directly by the verb.

I would take it to be part of the noun phrase EPI TOUS OFQALMOUS AUTOU. This
corresponds to the man's own description in 9:11: EPECRISEN MOU TOUS OFQALMOUS.

In this section John repeatedly placed the pronoun before the noun and in v. 15
also before EPI:

9:10 SOU OFQALMOI
9:14 AUTOU TOUS OFQALMOUS
9:15 PHLON EPEQHKEN MOU EPI TOUS OFQALMOUS
9:17, 26 SOU TOUS OFQALMOUS
9:21 AUTOU TOUS OFQALMOUS
9:30 MOU TOUS OFQALMOUS

Maybe John wanted to emphasize that this singular miracle actually was
experienced by one blind person, but such was unheard of (cf. v. 32). It was
this particular man's eyes, and nobody else's.

Iver Larsen




More information about the B-Greek mailing list